Community casting nearly matches MSI 2024 official broadcasts viewership: what it means for LoL esports?

Loading

Community casting has become the norm for the second consecutive year at all international League of Legends tournaments. Previously, independent streamers were only permitted to cover tier-2 European professional leagues, however, this situation has changed following a successful experiment at the 2022 World Championship. The most compelling evidence of this shift is the new viewership records set at top tournaments, the latest being Mid-Season Invitational 2024.

Thanks to community casting, the Mid-Season Invitational 2024 broke series records for both watch time and concurrent viewership. In the short term, the impact of community casting has been overwhelmingly positive. However, Riot Games may face unexpected side effects from this new broadcasting structure in the future. In this article, we will explore the role, influence, and potential issues of community casting.

Over the past two years, the share of community casting in the MSI series has grown significantly. The number of unique channels covering the tournament has increased from around 50-60 (before community casting became prominent) to 100+. At MSI 2023, independent streamers accounted for approximately 32.9% of the total watch time for the entire tournament. By MSI 2024, this share had risen to 43.8%, meaning that community casters have nearly matched official channels in audience reach in just two years.

Some community casters of MSI 2024 even outperformed the official broadcast channels. For example, British streamer Caedrel generated more hours of watch time than the official English-language channel of Riot Games. Similarly, Ibai became the most-watched among all Spanish-language streams, and Baiano led the Portuguese-language segment of the tournament's broadcasts.

The rise of Caedrel is particularly noticeable considering the declining viewership for the Riot Games channel. During MSI 2023, Caedrel's broadcasts amassed 2.7 million Hours Watched and peaked at 66.8K concurrent viewers, significantly trailing behind Riot Games channel. The situation had completely changed during MSI 2024.

Community casting enables MSI to attract new audiences from various regions and platforms. For example, among the top five most popular community casters of MSI 2024 were representatives of four different languages (English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Korean) and four streaming platforms (Twitch, YouTube, NimoTV, and CHZZK). In contrast, the top official channels of MSI 2024 were less diverse, with the largest audiences primarily on YouTube and Twitch.

The most popular languages for community casting at MSI 2024 were English, Vietnamese, and Korean, each accounting for roughly equal shares of the total watch time — 25.1%, 22%, and 20.1%, respectively. These proportions may change next year, considering overall language trends in the series. While English viewership is growing positively, its rate of increase is slightly behind that of Korean and Vietnamese. This year, Korean surpassed English in total Hours Watched for the first time, and Vietnamese may do the same at the next MSI.

Spanish, Portuguese, and French appear to have reached their peaks and are unlikely to see significant increases in future tournaments. This is because the statistics for these languages in community casting are heavily dependent on specific streamers. Spanish viewers prefer to watch ibai, Portuguese viewers watch Baiano, and French viewers tune into kamet0. These streamers have effectively "monopolized" community casting within their languages, facing little competition. Significant increases in their contribution could only come from strong performances by the teams they own. If MAD Lions KOI, or Karmine Corp advance to the World Championship, ibai and kamet0 could attract viewers from other games. Similarly, if LOUD reaches the World Championship playoffs, Brazilian viewers are likely to rally strongly behind their team, boosting broadcast viewership accordingly.

The role and downsides of community casting

Community casting has long been an important tool for expanding esports tournaments' audience, not only in League of Legends but also in other games. Its growing popularity can be attributed to several factors, the main one being that the quality of broadcasts by independent streamers is increasingly matching that of official channels.

In recent years, the culture of content consumption has changed. Viewers are increasingly preferring cozy streams from their favorite streamers over official channels, which often have more ads and censorship. In 2021, the official MSI channels hit a ceiling in terms of audience reach, and in 2022, the tournament saw a 21% drop in watch hours — a very alarming sign for organizers. To reverse this trend, Riot Games began involving community casters in covering international tournaments starting in 2023. This strategy worked, and now the series is once again showing positive viewer statistics.

The involvement of community casters has had a positive impact on MSI viewership. However, the tournament's audience is now spread across multiple channels. Data from MSI 2024 reveals that independent streamers already contribute to over 40% of the total watch time of the tournament, and in the future, they may match official broadcasts in this aspect. In the long run, this shift could pose a challenge for Riot Games — official channels are no longer as dominant, and viewers are increasingly drawn to community casters who offer ad-free content and more relaxed communication rules.

The issue of advertising is particularly significant. Over time, Riot Games will need to establish clear rules and mechanisms for collaborating with community casters to ensure that advertising integrations reach every viewer, including those on streamers' channels. The company has already implemented such strategies in Valorant esports, where community casters are required to re-stream the official broadcast.

The symbiosis of official and unofficial broadcasts at League of Legends tournaments presents an intriguing topic for analysis. However, the potential of community casting is not boundless: independent streamers have a ceiling on the audience they can contribute to the overall tournament statistics. It will be fascinating to observe how Riot Games responds when their international series once again faces a plateau in viewer statistics.