CBLOL overtakes LCS by viewership for the second time

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The CBLOL Split 1 2023 ended on April 15 after almost three months of action, with LOUD easing past paiN Gaming 3:0 to emerge victorious. It was a historic event, becoming just the second-ever to outdraw its North American counterpart, the LCS, in terms of viewership stats.

LOUD’s win helped the side book its berth at the Mid-Season Invitational 2023 while pocketing R$115K. paiN Gaming took home R$85K for its efforts, which involved four matches in the Playoffs, including the Grand Final.

  Overall stats and peak matches from the tournament   

The CBLOL Split 1 2023 reached 276K Peak Viewers, with the peak match coming from the title decider. The losing finalist was, in fact, part of four of the five most popular matches from the competition, while the winner was involved in three such games. It was also the perfect summit clash to help the competition beat the LCS, as it was a series between two of the most popular sides in the region, apart from being the same Grand Final matchup for the second split in a row.

The event also did 15.7M Hours Watched and 111K Average Viewers over an Airtime of 140h 25min. It was a close fight between the finalists, but LOUD came out as the most popular side in terms of average concurrent viewership with 142K AV.

However, it was paiN Gaming that ended up as the most-watched side at this League of Legends competition, no doubt aided by the fact that it played one more game during the Playoffs than LOUD. Again, this pointed to these two organizations being much more in demand than their competitors.

Regarding languages, there were no surprises as Portuguese was almost exclusively the only option for audiences, with English being the only other contributor at a paltry 0.03%. This was the exact same split of languages as the previous split, despite the 2022 event having an extra platform and hence, more channels.

When discussing platforms, it was a straight fight between Twitch and YouTube, with the purple platform edging it by recording 51.2% of the overall viewership pie. This makes it one of the few regions and events where the viewership is not dependent heavily on one particular platform — in most cases Twitch —for good viewership numbers.

Coming to the main point of reference for this year’s event, the numbers it put up helped it reach a larger concurrent viewership base than the LCS Spring 2023, which reached 271K PV. This was the first time since the CBLOL Split 1 2021 and LCS Spring 2021 ran simultaneously that this has happened, which is not good news for the LCS. It clearly signals a clear shift of power and audience interest from North America to South America, where esports as a whole has never been bigger.

  Comparing the 2023 spring splits of CBLOL and LCS   

It wasn’t just in terms of peak viewership that the CBLOL came out on top, for it also beat its northern counterpart in terms of watch hours and average concurrent viewership. Even in terms of the most popular teams, the big names from the South outperformed their North cousins, leading to an arguably seminal moment in American League of Legends esports.

When looking at all-time CBLOL competitions, the CBLOL Split 1 2023 comfortably finished as one of the best in terms of viewership metrics. It was fourth in terms of watch hours and seventh in terms of peak concurrent viewership, further proving that Brazil is the new LoL hub for fans.

Comparing all the CBLOL events by PV and HW

The top event by watch hours remains the CBLOL 2020 Split 2, which reached an impressive 18.8M HW, while the best one by peak concurrent viewership is the CBLOL 2021 Split 1 with 416K PV. These competitions are in the top three lists for both metrics and with the kind of numbers seen at the CBLOL Split 1 2023, perhaps fans might see their reigns come under threat during the next split in the summer.

For now, Brazil and South American fans can bask in a milestone moment, one that was perhaps some time coming. And with the best and most popular side in the MSI 2023, they can look forward to more good news as the year progresses.