Worlds 2021 Group Stage Overview: Can Anyone Stop LCK Teams?
Eight teams with millions of fans around the world are waiting for the Worlds 2021 playoffs to start. Who will stop LCK teams from taking the trophy home? Will the event set a new viewership record? These are the main questions about the knockout stage, but first let’s break down the results of the group stage.
Viewership statistics of Worlds 2021 Group Stage
Just like it was in Play-In, the Group Stage of Worlds 2021 turned out to be more popular compared to the same phases of previous World Championship. Average number of Group Stage viewers was 1.3M, which is almost 50% more than it was during Play-In, and also 21.5% more compared to the Worlds 2020 Group Stage.
As the Average Viewers of the event grew, so did the total time viewers spent watching World Championship broadcasts. The Worlds 2021 group stage had more than 79.1 million Hours Watched in 60.5 hours of airtime. This is a 40% increase over last year's World Championship groups.
On the first day, the group stage also set the current Worlds 2021 record for Peak Viewers. The first T1 match at Worlds in two years was a sensation, with over 2.2 million people watching it concurrently. It is 20% more than the previous World Championship group stage peak when Gen.G and LGD Gaming had a match. Only one match in the entire stage managed to reach more than 2 million viewers: Fnatic and Hanwha Life Esports in the re-match.
Worlds 2021 is usually watched very actively by Korean spectators, and LCK teams were among the five most-watched group stage matches. Two HLE vs. Fnatic matches and none of the D quartet matches made the top 5.
Language Statistics
According to the Worlds statistics, the official English-language broadcasts and the Korean-language streams always lead in terms of languages. The same is true for the current event of the series. However, both languages still do not reach the record results: regarding Peak Viewers, English-language Worlds 2021 in fourth place and the Korean-language tournament is in ninth spot.
It is noteworthy that in Play-In the third place in total Hours Watched took Worlds in Portuguese, but after the RED Canids left the tournament, the Brazilian interest in the World Championship began to drop. Now Spanish-language broadcasts have moved into third place, where Worlds 2021 is already the most successful event of the discipline by total Hours Watched (more than 13 million hours), but in terms of Peal Viewers it is still behind the before last year World Cup. But everything might change in the playoffs, because the Spaniards will be actively supporting their compatriot Elyoya, the MAD Lions player.
DetonatioN FocusMe reaching the group stage of the tournament had a positive effect on the tournament's viewers statistics in Japan, but even there Worlds 2021 failed to reach the top spot by Peak Viewers - it was behind Mid-Season Invitational 2021, where DetonatioN also participated.
The only language that had a record for Worlds 2021 was Czech, with a Peak Viewers number of 12K spectators during the decisive Group D tie-breakers. Like the Spaniards, local LoL fans actively follow the MAD Lions, where Czech e-athletes Humanoid and Carzzy compete.
Popular Group Stage Teams
Despite the hype over Faker's return to the World Championship, the most popular team in the group stage was not T1, but Fnatic from Europe. The LEC Summer 2021 finalist's matches were followed by more than 1.486 million Average Viewers. It should be noted that Fnatic beat T1 by only three thousand viewers.
The top 5 teams by Average Viewers includes another LEC representative (Rogue with 1.4 million viewers), as well as Cloud9 (1.399 million viewers) and PSG Talon (1.396 million), the current PCS champion.
Will Korea defend the title?
The intrigue of the group stage lasted until the final day, because seven (!) teams in quartets A and D were contenders for the playoffs. Gen.G Esports, MAD Lions and Cloud9 proved to be the best teams, so they will play in the decisive stage of Worlds.
However, at least one team from South Korea will play in the Worlds 2021 semifinals, but there will likely be more of them. Four representatives of LCK, including Hanwha Life Esports, which started from the Play-In stage, made it to the Worlds 2021 playoffs. Among the Korean teams, current world champions DAMWON Gaming look most convincing. The team never lost a single game in the group stage. T1 also had a good start at the tournament, losing on only one of the six maps.
Western spectators will have only two teams to cheer for in the playoffs — MAD Lions and Cloud9. Unfortunately, Rogue, 100 Thieves, Fnatic, and Team Liquid did not get higher than third place in their groups.
For the next three days the teams will rest and prepare for the playoffs, the first game of which begins on October 22, when T1 will meet with compatriots from Hanwha Life Esports. But the most awaited match is DWG vs. MAD Lions, which will be actively watched by both Koreans and English-speaking spectators.
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