LEC Summer 2024 continued the year’s trend of growing viewership for League of Legends’ EMEA circuit

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LEC Summer 2024 recently came to an end, marking the end of EMEA’s 2024 Splits. The League of Legends series will continue with its LEC Season Finals 2024, beginning on August 10 and determining which EMEA teams will secure two spots for Worlds 2024. The Summer Split for this year marked an up tick in viewership, although it followed a particularly poor-performing 2023 Summer Split.

The event culminated in a grand final match between G2 Esports and Fnatic, two of the most legendary European esports organizations within League of Legends’ esports scene. Although Fnatic put up a strong fight throughout the finals, G2 Esports closed out a 3-0 victory over their competitor, securing not only €40,000 in prize pool money but also a spot at Worlds 2024. 

  Viewership statistics of the LEC Summer 2024 and 2023 editions   

The LEC Summer 2024 event recorded 18.98M Hours Watched, about 2.8M hours of watch time more than last year’s Summer tournament. The grand final match between G2 Esports and Fnatic was the tournament’s most popular match, reaching 417.1K Peak Viewers. The game was markedly more popular than last year’s Summer split, which recorded 73.5K fewer concurrent viewers at peak. 

Not only was this year’s event more popular at its peak, but it held a larger audience throughout its entire runtime. The 2024 edition recorded 220.5K Average Viewers, which is the highest average concurrent viewership a LEC Summer event has received since 2021. In the past two years, the LEC has significantly shortened its broadcasting time, with Riot Games opting for a more condensed and action-packed event: the 2024 Summer event’s runtime was only 60% of that of the Summer 2022 tournament. 

  Most popular matches of the LEC Summer 2024   

Apart from the grand final between G2 Esports and Fnatic, the fan-favourite teams of the LEC are clear as day. Mad Lions KOI and Karmine Corp faced each other multiple times through the split, and their matches were consistently popular. Their playoffs match received 394.2K PV, and their Week 1 match received 386.1K PV, outperforming many of the high-stakes playoffs matches hosted towards the tail-end of the split. 

As the LEC has struggled with falling viewership in past years, the emergence of esports organizations supported and/or founded by internet personalities and content creators has been an integral force behind the league’s revitalisation. Ibai and Kamet0, founders of KOI and Karmine Corp, respectively, were the two most popular broadcasters to cover the LEC Summer this year; ibai reached 116.7K PV while broadcasting Mad Lions KOI’s match against Karmine Corp. 

Across past years, the LEC, and League of Legends esports in general, has been opening itself up more to coverage from community casters. These community casters must be connected to a competing esports organization in some way, whether this be founders such as ibai, or streamers like Caedrel who have been signed by esports organizations as an official community caster. In total, community casters were responsible for a slight majority of the LEC Summer 2024’s watch time.

As expected, teams like Karmine Corp and MAD Lions KOI are especially popular, thanks to support from their founding content creators, and the sizable regional audiences which are proud to support esports organizations from their home country. Apart from these two titans, some organizations enjoyed popularity thanks to their competitive success and legacy within the LEC, and even a relative newcomer to the LEC placed within this top 5 ranking. 

  Peak concurrent viewership of the past five LEC Summer events   

Comparing viewership across the past five years of the LEC, the Summer splits have been generally struggling to generate the viewership they enjoyed in the past. The 2020 edition was the last LEC Summer event to break one million concurrent viewers, and 2023 marked one of the most significant drops in viewership that the League of Legends esports scene has ever experienced. 

Despite this major drop in viewership, the 2024 edition managed to turn the tide and bring the LEC back to an upwards trajectory. Community casters and fan-favourite teams for French and Spanish audiences have become a crucial part of the LEC’s viewership, but the 2024 edition managed to reach its peak without the presence of these highly popular teams. Optimistically, this highlights that the LEC can begin to slowly grow its viewership again, without entirely relying on these fan-favourite rosters to boost its viewership.