LFL Spring 2023's viewership numbers fail to match last year's peaks

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The LFL Spring 2023 recently ended after almost two and half months of intense action, with LDLC OL beating Team GO in the Grand Final to claim €8,000 and a place in the EMEA Masters. Unfortunately, it did not match the numbers from the previous four splits from this European Regional League, and that was clearly because the fan-favorite teams failed to reach the knockout stage.

This €20,000 prize pool tournament did 5.96M Hours Watched, 158K  Peak Viewers, and 44K Average Viewers, down 6%, 25%, and 8% from the previous split, the LFL Summer 2022. The Peak Match came when Team GO faced off against Karmine Corp on Day 1 of Week 1, with the latter being the most popular team, as seen from the fact that it was part of all five of the most viewed matches at the competition.

Worth mentioning here is the fact that the Grand Final match-up barely pulled in the viewers, ranking as the fiftieth most popular game across the competition with 49K PV. Again, it was a testament to the power of famous sides like KC, Vitality.Bee, and BK ROG Esports, whose inability to make the Playoffs really upset the viewership stats of the latter part of this event.

  Match and viewership stats from the LFL Spring 2023   

Karmine Corp, owned by rapper and entrepreneur Amine "Prime" Mekri and popular Twitch star LoL player Kamel "Kameto" Kebir, is the current holder of the European Masters title. The highly popular side won the 2022 European Masters Spring Split, becoming the first team to win it thrice as well as the first organization to notch a hat-trick of wins. Naturally, all the attention was bound to be on perhaps the most consistent side in French League of Legends today.

Incidentally, even during the LFL Summer 2022, Karmine Corp was the most popular side, turning up in all the five most-watched matches. This was despite the side not doing well and finishing sixth, while at this year’s split, it ended in the ninth spot.

  Channel and platform dynamics from the competition   

The top three most popular and most-watched channels were otplol, a popular French organization specializing in broadcasting LoL esports, kamet0, and shaunz (two popular streamers of the game on Twitch), in that order. In terms of HW, otplol outperformed all the other channels put together across the tournament.

This year, the entire competition was viewed by only French viewers, with the event again exclusively broadcast on Twitch. It is pretty sobering for the league that its viewership numbers depend so heavily on its most popular side, Karmine Corp, who performed really badly.

Also, Misfits Premier, one of the more popular sides in the French league, left after its LEC spot was acquired by Team Heretics Misfits, with Aegis selected to replace them, contributing to a drop in viewership stats.

  Comparison of the last few LFL splits   

Compared to the last four splits, the LFL Spring 2023 had the weakest numbers. With LEC experimenting with a three-split system — Winter, Spring, and Summer — perhaps there will be a more even viewership distribution across these three events than usual, meaning lesser viewership numbers than in previous years. Last year was also the first where audiences were allowed to shows after the pandemic, so that was a boost that may have been missing this time.

League of Legends’ run in the new set-up involving Europe, Turkey, CIS, and MENA has gotten off to an exciting start, with a drastic change in viewer stats expected with the change in format and new teams. Over the last few years, the European Masters had a strong Spanish and French audience base, but with no Karmine Corp or Team Heretics to pull in viewers, it remains to be seen how the revamped EMEA Masters Spring 2023 will perform in terms of viewership numbers.

Also read: What led to lower viewership of LPL Spring 2023 Group Stage?