Ultraliga Season 11 reaches new Week 1 viewership heights after voluntarily losing accreditation

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The first week of the Ultraliga Season 11 has concluded. The 11th season debut of the Eastern European series reached peak viewership higher than the league has managed for the first week in years. With some slight changes to the tournament and support from Polish community caster RybsonLoL_, the competition has been revitalised despite the accusations of win trading and match-fixing.

Ahead of the 2024 season, rumours were circulating the League of Legends scene that the Ultraliga could lose its accredited status. The league organisers took a proactive approach and decided to remove their accredited status themselves, voluntarily reducing the number of teams competing from 10 to 8 and losing their Masters direct route. The top 2 teams of the Ultraliga will no longer directly qualify for the EMEA Masters but must qualify through the Play-In Group. Critically, this will make the league much cheaper to run, possibly ensuring its survival throughout the upcoming years.

Despite losing their accreditation, the Ultraliga appears to be performing strongly in viewership metrics. The league reached more viewers in its Week 1 matches than it has managed in recent years.

Ultraliga Season 11 Week 1 Viewership Statistics

Ultraliga Season 11 reached over 10.1K Peak Viewers for its Week 1 matches, marking a 79.5% increase from the previous league, Average Viewers rose by 69%.

Viewership for the Ultraliga is clearly rising, and this is partially thanks to Rybsonlol_. Rybson is a former Polish professional player for League of Legends who is not competing this year. His reputation in Poland has built up an audience on Twitch. His broadcasts of the league have become hugely watched and he is now contributing the largest portion to both the event’s watch time and peak viewership.

The loss of Ultraliga’s accreditation meant the league downsized from 10 to 8 teams, which also has a direct event on the league’s watch time. As fewer teams are competing, there are fewer matches to be broadcast and fewer opportunities to generate Hours Watched. Ultraliga was live for 7 hours less this time, but still managed to outperform Season 10’s watch time.

Week 2 of the Ultraliga has also concluded, and viewership statistics remain high. Typical for any regional league, viewership fell slightly moving out of the first week of the season; however, compared to Season 10 Peak Viewers and Average Viewers for Week 2 increased by 135% and 147%, respectively.

The most popular match of Week 1 was the match between Zero Tenacity and Back2TheGame. B2TG most recently qualified for the Ultraliga through the Promotion tournament, and despite their ascension to the Ultraliga, they are yet to win a game in Season 11. This match was the first time in Season 11 that the Ultraliga was covered by polsatgames2. Polsat Games is the official Polish broadcaster for the Ultraliga, but their secondary channel sometimes covers matches in English. This first match covered in English received significantly higher viewership than others, thanks to a wave of English-speaking fans watching the game.

The match between devils.one and Team ESCA Gaming was the second most popular match with 8.7K Peak Viewers recorded. Devils.one originally missed out on qualifying for the Ultraliga, losing the Promotion tournament out to Team ESCA Gaming. However, the team has returned with a brand-new roster and is currently sitting at the top of the Ultraliga table, poised to potentially attend the EMEA Masters event if things continue.

Another advantage of the Ultraliga losing its accredited status is the league organisers can now invite teams as they please. Rather than relying on Riot Games’ Promotion tournaments and rigid system, the league decided to invite devils.one to play, despite them falling at the Promotion hurdle. The decision seems to have been a smart one, as devils.one is providing high-quality matches and generating significant watch time for the league.

The most popular match of Week 2 was between devils.one and Grypciocraft, which received 8.5K Peak Viewers. The match was highly watched by Polish audiences but was boosted above other matches thanks to the English-language secondary broadcast. Although the match between Iron Wolves and Team ESCA Gaming has been highly talked about due to match-fixing accusations, this match ranked only 3rd by Peak Viewers for Week 2 games.

Match-fixing controversy 

The Ultraliga had been enjoying the beginning of Season 11. Viewership was high and matches were competitive and fun to watch. In Week 2, in the match between Iron Wolves and Team ESCA Gaming, viewers began to notice odd choices being made by Iron Wolves players. Iron Wolves’ Chinese players, kylin and Odin, were noticed by viewers to be refusing to damage enemies, letting them get away, and seemingly wasting their Ultimate abilities. 

Critically, Iron Wolves did end up winning the game. The remainder of the roster, HeSSZero of Poland and Ruf and Endz of Estonia, managed to carry their team to a victory, seemingly offsetting the attempts of their teammates to lose the game. Neither Riot nor the teams have commented on the situation yet, but it is not a good look for the Ultraliga to put forward in their current state. 

Despite this unfortunate event, the Ultraliga is seemingly in a solid position. The league is now cheaper, leaner, and drawing more viewers than previously thanks to the assistance of Polish viewers through both the official broadcasts and community casters.