Smaller regions are growing to offset the dwindling viewership for the larger circuits in League of Legends
As we make our way through September, the League of Legends esports scene is gearing up for the 2023 World Championship event to kick off. With the regional leagues behind us, we’ve taken a look at the viewership data for each of the major international circuits that make up the League of Legends ecosystem. Some regional leagues struggled to retain viewership whereas other regions exploded in popularity this year.
22 teams have already qualified for Worlds 2023 directly from all around the globe, representing regions like Korea, China, EMEA, and North America. The Play-In stage will also feature other regions of the world that would otherwise be unrepresented at Worlds, like the Pacific region, Vietnam, Japan, Brazil and Latin America. Worlds is the biggest gaming event of the year for League of Legends and is consistently one of the biggest gaming events in the entire esports industry. Last year, the 2022 Worlds Championship received 141.9M Hours Watched, making it the most-watched esports event of the entire year, outperforming the MPL Indonesia Season 9.
Before we turn our focus onto Worlds entirely, it’s time to take a look at how these teams qualified for Worlds: regional leagues. Regional leagues are the backbone of the Worlds event, acting as a qualifying stage and letting fans cheer on their favourite teams on a regional level before, hopefully, cheering them on at Worlds. Here at Esports Charts, we have already looked at the LEC and VCS, so now it’s time for a global overview of this year’s League of Legends so far.
League of Legends Viewership 2023 (pre-Worlds)
Regional circuits for League of Legends are a diverse bunch, and none of them experienced the exact same viewership dynamics as another. In our LEC article, we looked at how the LEC benefited from its new format increasing airtime and therefore leading to a watch time boost, but the VCS was even able to increase its viewership without this kind of lengthening of the season.
Other leagues weren’t as lucky as these two and a majority of the remaining leagues suffered from a drop in viewership coming into 2023. Overall, the viewership for League of Legends 2023 is slightly down compared to the last year.
In total, all of the League of Legends Worlds circuit action in the official circuits throughout this year has garnered 314M Hours Watched, an almost unfathomable figure. Airtime was one of the most volatile figures for the dynamics compared to last year throughout all regions, but overall the differences balanced out to be statistically insignificant.
The Hours Watched figure is slightly down compared to last year, with this metric marking an 8.6% decrease in viewership compared to last year. Generally throughout most of League of Legends across the globe, 2020 and 2021 were the best years for viewership in the discipline’s history. The esports scene for the MOBA game is continuing to struggle to match these record-setting peaks, but the decline in viewership is slow. It appears after reaching record-setting viewership for the esports industry in 2021, the viewership for League of Legends has plateaued. Looking through the circuits on a region-by-region basis, we can draw more exact conclusions about which regions are growing and which are shrinking.
Of all the regional leagues we analysed, the LCS experienced the largest drop in viewership compared to last year per Hours Watched. However, this singular figure does not tell the full story. Although the LCS received 36.4% fewer hours of watch time this year compared to last, it also experienced a 23.8% drop in Airtime, as the LCS Lock-In event did not take place this year. The LCS was also the only regional circuit to host fewer events this year than last. Although the drop in airtime helps alleviate the severity of a 36.4% drop in watch time, the LCS is continuing its downturn in viewership which began in 2021.
The LEC saw a small boost in viewership, but as we looked at in our article dedicated entirely to the LEC, this was largely due to an increase in airtime and a new format for this year. The LEC also benefited from its expansion to EMEA, rather than just Europe. Although the effects of the Middle East and Africa joining the league are yet to be seen, the league did hugely benefit from the new streamer-owned teams joining the league, KOI and Team Heretics. These teams may save the LEC’s viewership on their own if they can advance to the Playoffs stage next year. Apart from the LEC, the VCS experienced the largest growth in 2023, with 1.86M more HW than last year. We examined the VCS more directly in this article, but in summary, the VCS is one of the healthiest regional leagues in the LoL community.
Interestingly, the LCS and LPL saw drops in all metrics except one: Peak Viewers. Despite the two Asian regional leagues losing viewership by most metrics, the popularity of these regions appears to be stable. The LCK recorded an 11.2% increase in Peak Viewers this year, recording 1.52M peak concurrent viewers, and the LPL a 2.3% increase with 288.4K PV. The LPL and LCK were not able to grow their watch time this year, but their popularity and place within the LoL scene seem stable.
The PCS experienced a growth of 19% for their watch time this year, and they were the only league this year to garner growth in the way they did. The LCO, League of Legends Circuit Oceania, merged with the PCS to this year so that during the Playoffs stage of their Splits two teams from Oceania would join the Pacific teams to compete for the Play-In qualifications. The partnership between both of these circuits helped to draw in extra watch time for the PCS and give it a boost in terms of growth, however, it did negatively affect the LCO’s viewership.
Three regions in particular have exhibited curious dynamics this year: the LJL, LLA, and CBLOL. The LJL is the Japanese regional league and according to the Hours Watched dynamics for this league it seems that League of Legends is finally building up a solid audience in the region. Despite the LLA and CBLOL both being held in Latin America, these leagues are facing completely opposite dynamics for 2023. The LLA is continuing to grow and build viewership whereas the CBLOL appears to be moving backwards.
LJL Viewership Dynamics 2023
The LJL experienced a 20%+ growth compared to 2022 this year but with the help of a 26%+ increase in broadcasting time for the year. Despite having the lowest Average Viewers figure of all leagues analysed in 2023, not including the LCO, the circuit is still slowly creating a foothold for itself in Japanese esports.
The 2023 LJL season brought in 5.5M hours of watch time across the entire year. The league achieved this watch time throughout over 300 hours of broadcasting this year, which would actually put it lower than average in terms of broadcasting time for a League of Legends circuit. The Grand Finals match between DetonatioN and HAWKS was the most popular game of the circuit for the year, with just under 18K peak concurrent fans tuning in for the match.
Although the league did record an increase in watch time for this year, it still remains unable to match the viewership of the largest esports in Japan. Games like Valorant, Street Fighter, and Apex Legends are hugely popular in Japan and receive millions of hours of watch time yearly from the region. However, in terms of MOBA esports, the LJL is by far the most popular and most-watched option for the region. Although the LJL may not receive the viewership that the ALGS does, it does not have much competition to worry about.
Comparing this year’s LJL season to other years, we can clearly see how the broadcasting time has had a profound effect on the watch time. 2023 was the most-watched year of the LJL, one of the very few regions that has been able to outperform its 2020/2021 peaks, but it achieved this by increasing the watch time by over 70 hours for the Spring Split, comparing 2020 to 2023.
The LJL also received a large chunk of its viewership from the Spring season in 2023. Typically, we expect the first Split of the year to receive the most viewership, but 2023 saw this rise to another level in Japan. The difference between the two Splits in 2023 was more than 1M hours of watch time, far more than it has been in any other year. The LJL may struggle to replicate this large spike in viewership coming into next year.
LLA Viewership Dynamics 2023
The LLA 2023 marked the fifth year of the Latin American totally unified professional league, where previously the region was made up of many smaller regional events. Comparing 2023 to the previous year, the LLA experienced a growth of 24.4%, roughly 913K hours of watch time. The league saw the largest growth in its Peak Viewers, however, which reached 136.7K concurrent viewers marking an increase of 45%.
Not only was the Opening 2023 Split the most-watched split in LLA history, but the Closing Split also set a new Peak Viewers record for the circuit. In contrast to the LJL, the LLA achieved this watch time purely through the league experiencing healthy growth rather than increasing the broadcast time. The VCS may have had the largest growth in terms of hours of watch time, but the LLA experienced the largest proportional growth of any circuit in the Worlds circuit in 2023.
LLA viewership by year, Hours Watched and Peak Viewers
The LLA is continuing to establish itself as one of the most dominant esports leagues of the Latin American region, and 2023 was the best season in the event series’ history. Although the circuit has the entire Spanish-speaking Latin American region to lean on, it remains one of the smaller circuits for the esports discipline.
League of Legends is slowly getting a foothold in the Latin American market and if the growth the circuit exhibited this season continues, it may quickly become one of the fastest-growing esports disciplines in the region. The Latin American league also remains untouched by content-creator teams or brand-name esports teams. Content creator teams are becoming hugely popular in Europe and in Brazil organisations like LOUD are hugely popular with fans thanks to their content creation. If LATAM content creators begin supporting teams or forming their own, the viewership for this region could quickly explode overnight.
CBLOL Viewership Dynamics 2023
Staying in Latin America, let’s take a look at CBLOL, the Brazillian league for the region. The Brazillian league is struggling to maintain its viewership and watch time. Although the LLA league is growing and building an audience for itself, its Portuguese-speaking neighbours are struggling to continue to garner the viewership they received in past years.
In terms of Peak Viewers, the figure was very stable comparing the two years and the exact same teams appeared in both years for the most popular match. PaiN Gaming and LOUD both played in the Split 2 Grand Finals each year, cementing their spot as the most popular teams by Peak Viewers for both years. Although the Peak Viewers figure remained healthy for the league, viewership was still down.
Throughout the season, both Splits 1 and 2 failed to be able to hold the interest of its audience as viewership slowly slipped away. Both Hours Watched and Average Viewers saw a similar drop in terms of percentages, and these dropped despite the league almost staying identical in terms of broadcasting time. Comparing 2023 and 2022 for the CBLOL, the drop in viewership is not something that can be explained by a change to the format or league itself.
Interest in the league in Brazil seems to be plateauing in general, perhaps due to the domination of PaiN Gaming and LOUD. While the LLA is growing and building an audience, the CBLOL is facing issues in generating hype and interest for their league. Playoffs viewership remains stable for the CBLOL, as this is where the hype is naturally generated by the league, but the circuit is struggling to maintain active viewership during the nine-week-long season.
Although viewership is on a downturn for League of Legends when all the regions’ data are collated, this is a superficial look at the ecosystem. Many of the larger and more well-known regions are struggling to garner the viewership they received in previous years, such as the LPL and LCK, but their Peak Viewers figure remains stable and even exhibited growth in the Korean league. It seems fans may be burnt out and no longer want to dedicate 600 hours a year to watching the LCK, but the hype is still high for the Playoffs events and fans do tune in.
These large regions may be experiencing drops in watch time, but other smaller regional circuits are continuing to grow and prove that League of Legends still has a lot of life left in it. The VCS, PCS, LLA, and LJL all exhibited signs of healthy growth in 2023 and these regions are likely to support the League of Legends scene as viewership for the larger leagues declines. Worlds is still on the way later this year, and the event will surely be one of the most-watched esports events of the entire year. Keep up to date with Worlds and the Play-In stage viewership with the tournament pages here on Esports Charts.
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