Apex Legends Global Series Split 2 landscape: North American audiences shrink as Japan continues to grow

Loading

In the Apex Legends official esports scene, the Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS), the regional pro league events recently ended as the community prepares for the upcoming 2024 Split 2 Playoffs. The offline LAN event will be held in the SAP Arena of Mannheim, Germany, and invite 40 top teams from across the globe. Before we turn our attention to the Playoffs, let’s recap the pro league landscape and see how their viewership is performing. 

Apex Legends’ esports scene seemed to be in a promising place; the past 2024 Split 1 Playoffs became one of the most-watched Apex Legends ever, and it showed positive dynamics compared to the previous year’s iteration. However, this event relied heavily on support from community casters, especially from certain regions.

Hours Watched & Peak Viewers of the ALGS 2024 Split 2 Pro League Regions

The regional pro league circuits are also reliant on community casters, and these livestreamers have a direct impact on the overall viewership of the events. Critically, the North America circuit showed a significant loss of viewership, as viewers seemingly lose interest in the esports title. The ALGS: 2024 Split 2 Pro League - North America recorded 30K fewer Peak Viewers than last year’s event, and almost the same amount of Average Viewers fewer. 

The North American circuit was previously heavily reliant on community casters’ viewership, and this fell in 2024 alongside the official broadcast viewership. The North American region did set a new viewership record for the Pro League earlier this year, which was always going to be difficult to recreate. North American audiences will have a chance to prove their passion at the upcoming Split 2 Playoffs, but as it stands, they are a shrinking group. 

While the North American circuit is facing hardship, the ALGS: 2024 Split 2 Pro League - APAC North is thriving. The league is the competitive ground for Japanese teams, as well as a few South Korean ones. The Japanese Apex Legends audience has often shown itself to be one of the most passionate groups of fans in esports, and viewership continued to rise for the APAC North circuit. 

Although the circuit represents the entire Northern APAC region, the league is almost entirely attended by Japanese teams, and over 90% of the league’s viewership comes from Japanese-speaking audiences. Both the peak concurrent viewership and average concurrent viewership for the 2024 Split 2 Pro League grew significantly for this region, and Japanese fans show no sign of slowing down. 

For both the ALGS: 2024 Split 2 Pro League - EMEA and ALGS: 2024 Split 2 Pro League - APAC South, viewership fell significantly. The two regions have historically been smaller than their Japanese and North American counterparts, and the esports title seems to struggle to find a grip in the EMEA and APAC South regions. 

Looking towards viewership statistics for the most popular Split 2 Pro League of the year, the APAC North region enjoyed 3.1M Hours Watched and held an average viewership of 73.9K concurrent viewers. Usually, Japanese audiences prefer YouTube Live as a livestreaming platform, but for Apex Legends esports viewing, Twitch emerged as Japan’s preferred option.

With the Pro League behind us, the teams qualified for the upcoming Split 2 Playoffs have some time to prepare themselves to compete on the global stage. The event begins on August 29, and Esports Charts will cover the event through our blog and with live-updating viewership statistics on the tournament page.