Disastrous playoffs start: one of the lowest results in the history of Worlds

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League of Legends Worlds championship is already a staple of the esports scene, being one of the biggest and most prestigious tournaments of the year. The dream of every player is to qualify for Worlds, but only a few are able to do so, which makes it even more special. It brings the best 16 teams in the globe together to battle for the Summoner's Cup, in an event that is always full of memorable moments. 

The playoffs are the most important part of the tournament. Only the eighth-best teams make it there, and it's here that we can actually see who is the best team since best-of-fives are way more accurate about the true strength of a team than a best-of-one. So normally this stage of the event has an insane viewership, with playoff games attracting more viewers than the group stage games, which wasn't the case this time. 

LPL champions JD Gaming faced LEC champions, Rogue, in the first quarterfinals match of the playoffs. An elimination game between the two top teams in their respective regions should get the attention of most League of Legends fans, and reach a wide audience, as is usual for playoff games. However, that wasn't the case, with the match having a disappointing number of Peak Viewers, being only the 28th (!) most popular game of the tournament so far, being outperformed by most group stage and even play-in games. 

With only a little over 1 million Peak Viewers, it became the second least popular Worlds quarterfinal match in the last six years. Only the 2017 match between Samsung Galaxy and Longzhu Gaming was less popular, with 793K Peak Viewers. Compared to the 2021 and 2020 Worlds quarterfinals matches, we can see a big drop in viewership. In 2021 the least popular quarter-final match had 1.8 million PV, while in 2020 it had 1.7 million PV. 

But what's even worse about this game is the fact that it had a worse viewership than group stage games. This was something that didn't happen in 2021, as all the playoff matches were much more popular than the group stage ones. Most games from the 2021 Worlds group stage also reached more Peak Viewers than this quarterfinal game, which is surely not the fact to be happy about. For the most part of the tournament history, playoff games have always been the most popular, which is normal since it's at this stage of the event that the stakes are the highest. 

It’s clear that the time-zone issue that we have already touched on in a very detailed way, is the main responsible for this drastic drop in viewership. The tournament starts at a late hour in both Europe and Asia, where the majority of viewers of the tournament reside, which impacts the viewership numbers. We had already seen a drop in the number of viewers on the play-in stage, and it seems the trend will continue in the playoffs. The fact that Rogue is not as popular as other organizations such as Fnatic or G2 Esports also had a direct correlation to the low number of PV. Rogue is a great team, but they simply don't have the gigantic fan base that some other European organizations have.

Riot Games will surely not be happy about this disastrous playoff start, as having a playoff game being the 28th most popular match of the tournament is not something the company would want. In the next quarter-final game, we have one of the biggest rivalries in League of Legends history, with South Korean team T1 facing the MSI winners RNG. Both teams are very popular, with T1 being arguably the most popular League of Legends organization in the world, so the viewership numbers for this game should be much better. However, the fact that only South Korean and Chinese teams remain in the tournament, might not help the event reach as many viewers as it could. 

The Worlds 2022 playoffs are now underway and you can follow the matches and the event live viewership stats right here.