How did Worlds 2023 reach the highest peak viewership in esports history?
Last weekend, the League of Legends World Championship 2023 ended with a T1 vs Weibo Gaming Grand Final. The final Best-of-5 was claimed by T1 in a dominant 3-0 victory, and the match also brought the highest concurrent viewership in esports ever: 6.4M Peak Viewers.
Worlds events have been steadily growing in popularity year after year, but the explosive growth to 6.4M concurrent viewers surprised many. The brand-new viewership record rocked the scene, and the event truly raised the bar for esports viewership. So, how was League of Legends able to set a new esports viewership record and host the most popular Grand Final match in the industry?
Firstly, the Worlds series is undoubtedly the most popular esports event series in the world. Since the event started, Worlds has routinely been the most popular event of the year in esports. The combination of League of Legends’ popularity, the clash of global rivals, and the stakes of a winner-takes-all championship creates a profound cocktail for viewership.
Worlds events have been receiving more and more viewership almost every year. The event continues to grow and evolve yearly, and if the 2023 Worlds final didn’t set a new esports viewership record, one of the following years was likely to. Excluding the popularity of the event series itself, what else contributed to the record-breaking viewership of Worlds 2023?
Growing regional audiences supported Worlds 2023
One significant factor for viewership at Worlds 2023 was growing regional viewership. As much as critics of any esports discipline love to cry dead game, League of Legends is growing quite quickly in some regions around the world. Vietnamese broadcasts were some of the most important viewership sources for Worlds 2023.
Prior to Worlds 2023, the Vietnamese VCS regional league for the LoL circuit exhibited a growth of 19% in watch time. Vietnamese fans are watching more of their local LoL events than in the past, and they continued to show their growing love for the discipline at the Worlds event. Vietnamese-language broadcasts reached new records for the language throughout the Group Stage, and occasionally, Vietnamese-language broadcasts were even more popular than English ones.
Read also: Vietnamese viewership outperformed English for the first time at Worlds 2023 main event
Vietnamese fans did not slow down after showing the viewership power of their region in the Group Stage. During the Worlds 2023 Grand Final, the largest audience of Vietnamese broadcasts in all of esports was recorded, 805.3K Peak Viewers. On top of this achievement, Japanese streams also recorded the highest peak viewership for Japanese at any League of Legends event ever.
Japan is another region that is experiencing growth in its regional circuit, and the land of the rising sun contributed 155.5K Peak Viewers to the Grand Final’s viewership at Worlds 2023. However, whereas Vietnamese recorded the vast majority of its viewership on the official Vietnamese-language broadcast for Worlds, Japanese audiences preferred to experience the event through community casters.
More community casters
In 2022, Riot Games announced they would allow community casters to cover the Worlds 2022 event. The decision proved to be a clever one, and it was a significant factor in the event being the first Worlds tournament to reach over 5M PV. However, with 2022 being the first year that community casters would be allowed, the list of streamers authorised to broadcast the event was quite limited.
Coming into 2023, the community casters list was broadened and more streamers were allowed to cover the event. Comparing the two years, there were roughly 150% more community casters covering Worlds 2023 than the previous year. It is important to note, that official broadcasts remain by far the most popular way to view Worlds, excluding some specific regions like Japan.
Japanese streamer k4sen’s watch party was the most popular Japanese coverage of the final
At Worlds 2022, no Japanese community casters were permitted to cover the event. Jumping forward to 2023, there was a wide variety of Japanese live-streamers covering the event. Compared to 2022, Japanese viewership at Worlds 2023 was 128% more popular, despite the official riotgamesjp channel being 30% less popular by PV.
The increase in Japanese viewership at Worlds 2023 was not directly caused by the growth of the discipline, but rather a result of Riot Games’ new attitude towards community casters. Japanese was not the only language to benefit from the new community casters rules; more than half of the Spanish Peak Viewers figure came directly from ibai’s stream.
Community casters were out in full force for the final day of Worlds, and more than 50 individual non-official broadcasts were recorded across various platforms during the Grand Finals. These channels generated millions and millions of Hours Watched and contributed heavily towards the event’s peak viewership. In total, community casters at Worlds 2023 generated roughly 22% of the Peak Viewers recorded during the Grand Final.
Korean home game against China
Of course, one clear influence for the substantial viewership of Worlds 2023 was the story behind the Grand Final. Fans were shocked when Gen.G, the #1 seeded Korean team, lost against Bilibili Gaming, the #2 Chinese team, in the Quarterfinals. Gen.G was predicted by many to win the entire event, and it seemed that one of the four Chinese teams in the Playoffs was guaranteed to take another title home.
T1 had a slightly shaky start to the event. They progressed through the Group Stage with a 3-1 record, but they lost against main rivals Gen.G. It seemed that if Gen.G were unable to topple the Chinese teams at the Worlds 2023 Playoffs, T1 would not be able to either.
Chinese and Korean teams make regular appearances in the Worlds finals, and in both 2020 and 2021, Worlds featured a Chinese-Korean Grand Final match-up. The rivalry between the two regions has been heating up, especially after the Korean Dplus KIA roster was able to become champions of Worlds 2020, which was hosted in China.
When the Grand Final of Worlds 2023 was announced to be T1 against Weibo Gaming, fans knew this match would be one to remember. Either Weibo Gaming would return the favour from Worlds 2020 and claim a world championship on their rival’s soil, or T1 would be able to claim their fourth world title with a home stadium advantage.
T1 is already one of the most popular teams in esports, but with the nation of Korea behind them in the stadium and becoming the final hope of the Korean region for a world championship, the roster ascended to new heights. Korean esports viewership hit a new record during the Grand Final, with 2M Peak Viewers. AfreecaTV, a South Korean live-streaming platform, also reached a new Esports Peak during the match: 534K PV.
With T1 and Faker achieving their fourth world championship together, Korean audiences were out in full force to support the roster and the fan-favourite player. However, not only Korean audiences were out to support their team. Chinese fans supported Weibo Gaming on Chinese live-streaming platforms like Huya. The Grand Final of Worlds 2023 peaked at 144.2M Heat Index, making Worlds 2023 the second-most popular event in the series per Heat Index. The 2021 Grand Final where EDward Gaming claimed a world championship for the region saw 251.6M Heat Index at peak, the most popular Worlds match on Chinese live-streaming platforms ever.
With the Korean audience setting a new record during the Worlds 2023 final, it’s clear that the rivalry between two Asian regions is far from over. Worlds 2024 and further events in the future will likely continue to fuel the rivalry these two regions share, and benefit from the viewership boost it brings.
In summary, Worlds 2023 enjoyed viewership boosts from a variety of sources. Growing regions, such as Vietnam, contributed a large portion of the event’s total viewership through the official broadcasts. Community casters were also greatly important for the event’s viewership, thanks to Riot Games’ loosening of rules and allowing more and more community casters from various regions to enjoy the tournament with their fans.
Faker and T1’s story at Worlds 2023 boosted the event’s viewership to where it had never gone before. Fans from around the world tuned in to see if Faker could achieve his fourth world championship, and the fact that he was competing against a Chinese team only further encouraged Chinese and Korean fans to tune in and see which region would emerge victorious.
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