Has ALGS 2023 Championship the potential to become the largest event in the discipline's history?
The 22-23 season of the Apex Legends Global Series is coming to an end this September, when the 2023 Championship will take place at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England. With almost the whole season behind us, what can we expect from one of the most prestigious events in Apex Legends?
2022-2023 season viewership recap
2022 was the biggest year for viewership in Apex Legends. The 2022 Championship event was the most watched tournament in the discipline thanks to 11.29M Hours Watched throughout. The 2022 Split 2 Playoffs also holds the record for peak concurrent viewers, with 676K Peak Viewers.
However, the 2023 season is on track to topple these records potentially. The 2023 Split 2 Playoffs were the second-most-watched event in the discipline’s history, accumulating almost 1M more Hours Watched than the 2022 iteration of the same event. Ultimately, the Peak Viewers record wasn’t matched: the 2023 event fell just shy of 100K viewers short. The 2023 Split 2 Playoffs kicked off to a strong start, featuring an increase of 230% in watch time compared to the first day of the 2022 event. The tournament did feature a new format which saw every match of the tournament streamed, and no matches took place simultaneously; this did inflate the watch time for the event, but the success remains.
The idea that 2023 is shaping up to be a better year for the discipline is supported by the data available to us. Even ignoring the 2023 Split 2 Playoffs, 2023 events generally performed better than their 2022 counterparts. The Split 1 Playoffs for 2023 set a new record for the event, and the Pro Leagues saw a sizable increase in viewership: the North America Split 2 Pro League experienced a 28.6% increase in watch time and the EMEA Split 2 Pro League an increase of 42.8%, compared to 2022.
What’s to thank for this increase? Well, in general, the viewership is growing internationally, however, the Asian regions are experiencing even larger growth than the other regions. Analysing the differences in data between the 2022 Split 2 Playoffs and the 2023 event, Japanese and Chinese viewership experienced statistically significant differences. Japanese viewership dropped by 6.7%, but Chinese viewership increased by 5.5%, as a total of Hours Watched for the event.
Now, while Japanese viewership dropped between 2022 and 2023, this could be due to the performance of Japanese teams at the events. In 2022, a Japanese organisation won the event — with a British-Australian fielding of players — and a Japanese organisation with Japanese players finished third. At the 2023 event, Japanese teams struggled, and although they qualified for the final, they were outclassed and unable to secure a solid finish: this can be seen in the Finals’ dynamics.
Whereas English viewership grew and grew during the Finals as Americans and Australians raced to become Champions, Japanese viewership slowly decreased throughout the finals. It would be disingenuous to say the Japanese viewership for the 2023 Split 2 Playoffs was low; Japanese was the most popular language for the event, excluding English. Japanese viewership was, at points, the most popular language of the event’s viewership.
Whilst Japanese teams came into 2023 on a sour note, 2023 saw the new attendance of two Chinese teams in the tournament. Chinese viewership for 2022 was already strong, ranking within the top five languages, but in 2023 this almost doubled in size due to the addition of Chinese teams for the audience to support.
ALGS 2023 Championship information
The 2023 Apex Legends Global Series Championship will kick off on the 6th of September, in Birmingham. 40 teams will attend and be divided into four groups of 10. Each group plays each other throughout the group stage, with 18 matches being played in total. Following this comes the Bracket Stage and eventually the Finals. If you’re a fan of the ALGS, you’re already familiar with this format.
The exact schedule for the event is yet to be announced, but it is assumed that the event will run the new format introduced in the 2023 Split 2 Playoffs: non-simultaneous Group Stage matches, with every match being streamed. This boost in Airtime might be just what the Championship needs to overthrow the 2022 event as the most-watched tournament in the discipline.
The event features a $2M USD prize pool, the same as the 2022 iteration, and the ultimate champions take home a healthy $600K chunk of this. In terms of attendees, favourites DarkZero Esports will appear: the Australian duo paired up with the American player Xynew. Although they only rank third in the playoffs points, they are the reigning champions and their victory at the Split 2 Playoffs this year is a good boost in confidence for them.
American organisation TSM were the top-ranked team per Playoffs Points. They were the victors of the Split 1 Playoffs of this year and were the runner-up behind DarkZero Esports at the Split 2 Playoffs. Many fan-favourite esports organisations are also attending, like Moist Esports, Sentinels, and FaZe Clan. The event will feature teams from all around the globe, with representatives from Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and the United States. The global foundation of the ALGS 2023 Championship is a key advantage for the event to draw in large international viewership.
ALGS Last Chance Qualifiers
Recently, the Last Chance Qualifiers for the 2023 Championship took place. The qualifiers are regional-based and cover five different regions worldwide: North America, South America, EMEA, APAC North, and APAC South. In South America, Brazilian teams SAF Esports and K1CK qualified. The South American audience for ALGS does seem to wane coming into 2023, but this event is nearly entirely supported by the Brazilian community.
In APAC North, the famous organisation Crazy Raccoon qualified alongside the Japanese NORTHEPTION. Crazy Raccoon is a Korean-Japanese organisation and in Apex Legends they field a team of Koreans, however, they are still well known in Japan and the name of this organisation may bring some more viewership from this audience to the championship. In APAC South, Chinese MDY White qualified alongside the Thai Inside The Ring roster.
In the EMEA region, the international European GoNext Esports qualified alongside Les cités de France, a French team. The French roster is actually “orgless”, known in esports to mean a team that does not have the financial backing of an esports organisation. Now that they’ve qualified for the 2023 Championship, perhaps they will catch the eye of an organisation or a French streamer with some money to spend.
Finally, in North America Dudes Night Out qualified alongside The Dojo. The regional LCQ events saw amateur teams from around the world compete for a spot in the big leagues, including The Dojo, a team featuring streamer iiTzTimmy. The FPS streamer with 2.72M Followers on Twitch signed to 100Thieves late last year as a content creator. But the American streamer is proving they perhaps should have signed him as a player. His team competed throughout the qualifier as a regular amateur team and progressed through the entire event, eventually coming out in first place.
This does mean FURIA Esports will not make it to LAN. The American team failed to qualify for Split 1 Playoffs and finished 37th at the Split 2 Playoffs this year. Despite these disappointing results, FURIA eSports were the runners-up at the ALGS 2022 Championship. After failing to progress through the LCQ, this means the 2022 runner-up in the ultimate event of the year will not make an appearance in 2023.
ALGS Last Chance Qualifiers Viewership
Looking at the viewership statistics for the Last Chance Qualifier events in 2023 and 2022, the 2023 events have received lower attention. The North American region received fewer Hours Watched than the 2022 qualifiers, and this is including the fact of a longer broadcast in 2023.
EMEA and APAC North saw slight increases in Hours Watched, however, this fact is countered by the seven hours increase in broadcast time. Although both events saw an increase in concurrent viewers, these numbers are actually not proof of an overall increase in viewership. On the contrary, if the viewership for the APAC North region had stayed consistent with last year’s qualifiers, we would expect over 150K more Hours Watched due to the increased Airtime.
The South American region is slowly building itself up and the APAC South region experienced a large drop in watch time. However, it is important to note that Esports Charts is unable to collect data for Chinese streaming platforms. The APAC South region for 2023 featured almost a majority of Chinese players; compare this to the 2022 Last Chance Qualifier for APAC South, where only a handful of Chinese teams competed. As Chinese representation increases in the discipline, more and more events, especially regional events like the LCQ, will feature streams on Chinese platforms, which is unfortunately not feasible for us to track and collect data for.
Although viewership did not increase for the LCQ in 2023, this is a minor event compared to the Split Playoffs and the ultimate Champions event. The increase in Peak Viewers for the EMEA and APAC North regions shows that there is potential there. Viewership in 2023 has been steadily increasing throughout all major tournaments and the 2023 Championship will surely follow this trend as the most prestigious event of the year. Community casters are a big part of this esports, and with iiTzTimmy competing this will surely increase the number of American community casters for the event.
2023 is shaping up to be the biggest year yet for Apex Legends, make sure to catch the ALGS 2023 Championship live on your preferred streaming platform, whether it be the official stream or a community caster you prefer to watch. Stay up to date with the evolving esports landscapes through Esports Charts’ comprehensive data.
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