Hype for the LFL is at its highest: French LoL scene break viewership records
New La Ligue Française season is on unprecedented hype: French League of Legends scene keeps breaking records by peak and average number of viewers. And this is due to several factors: firstly, the production team has changed in the league, and secondly, there has been an excitement around the new Karmine Corp roster and team’s rivalry with Solary.
What's special about the new LFL season?
Perhaps the biggest change that happened to LFL is the new production team. Until 2021, O'Gaming LoL was the tournament operator of the competition, but the company lost the latest tender to OTP LoL company that was created at the end of 2020. The new tournament operator also provides French coverage for a number of other top League of Legends leagues, including the LEC and LCK.
However, the new production team is not the main reason for huge attention towards LFL. It’s all about the Karmine Corp club that is now performing in 1st division of LFL (known as Kameto Corp before the rebranding). The team made their debut in the top division of the league after a series of not very successful performances in the 2nd division: and now they gather tens of thousands of spectators during their matches.
At the end of 2020, Karmine Corp completely renewed its roster. Now the team has players from France, Belgium, Poland and Great Britain: of course, this attracts new spectators to the matches.
Viewership statistics is quite impressive. LFL is now comparable to the second most important European tournament in League of Legends after LEC — European Masters. On average more than 47.1K spectators watch the matches of the spring split of the French league: this is slightly less than was during EU Masters in 2020, and significantly more than the viewership stats of EU Masters 2019.
On the other hand, LFL Spring 2021 bypasses the EU Masters by the number of peak viewers. At the moment, the peak of the French league is almost 195K people, which is twice as much as was at EU Masters Summer 2020!
As we have already noted, the overwhelming majority of viewers come exactly to watch the matches of Karmine Corp. But why is the team so popular?
Karmine Corp and Solary are the brightest stars of the LFL
To understand the Karmine Corp phenomenon, we spoke with Xavier Descharmes from Gozulting, who knows firsthand the specifics of the French esports scene and League of Legends in particular. He told us about how Karmine Corp has taken advantage of the hype around the new season of LFL.
What one needs to know about Karmine Corp? It is a French esports organization that was founded in March 2020 by renowned streamer and former pro LoL player Kamel “Kameto” Kebir. Together with the other co-founder Amine "Prime" Mekri they help the club grow and get more recognition from a wide audience: Kameto actively streams, and Prime shoots videos for YouTube, sings and even has his own popular clothing line.
Unlike many other national leagues, LFL organizers allow participants to broadcast their own matches, and this is paying off. Kameto is one of the main reasons why LFL games attract so many spectators. The head of Karmine Corp actively casts his team’s matches, and it is his channel that is currently in the lead in terms of viewership (it even bypasses the main LFL broadcast by OTP LoL): 96.9K people at peak.
Group stage of LFL Spring 2021 gathered over 194.9K spectators at peak, an insane number for the French League of Legends scene. Thanks to Kameto, the current top 5 matches only have Karmine Corp games, and the most popular ones were against another popular team: Solary.
Solary is another reason why LFL Spring 2021 is so popular. It is the second most popular team in the league and a rival to Karmine Corp. The club also actively streams the matches of its team, but still it cannot compete with Kameto: the peak on Solary's main channel was only 22.7K people.
LFL’s second division is also growing
With OTP LoL, not only the main league of France is actively growing, but also its second division. In terms of viewership, the spring split is now comparable to the first divisions of previous LFL seasons.
The average number of LFL Division 2 viewers has grown by 229%: this season it is 6K viewers (vs 2.6K in 2019). The peak number of viewers at the moment is 17.6K: this is how many people watched Solary Academy vs GamersOrigin Academy game.
Does LFL have potential for further growth?
The LFL is showing fantastic results by viewership statistics, but it is likely that the peak has already been reached. All top matches of the spring split took place from January to mid-February. Alas, a new record could have been expected from another Karmine Corp vs Solary game in the playoffs, but it is not going to happen: Solary did not make it to the playoffs of the spring split. Perhaps, now the main task of the league and its teams is to maintain the gained momentum.
As Xavier Descharmes notes, the community itself is also actively helping in making French League of Legends scene interesting (or at least understandable) to masses. Everyone understands that the league needs to attract new viewers: and to achieve it, the League of Legends itself needs to become more popular in the region.
So far, the league's results under the new tournament operator are impressive. And we’re excited about what else OTP LoL could come up with.
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