Most popular broadcasting talents of Worlds 2023 Playoffs

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The League of Legends 2023 World Championship set a new viewership record for esports: the tournament reached 6.4M Peak Viewers, and the official English-speaking broadcasting guided well over a million of these viewers through the action.

The yearly Worlds event in League of Legends is routinely one of the most popular esports events of the year, and an equally star-studded broadcasting team supports it. The official English-language broadcast featured over 30+ talent, ranging from casters to analysts and desk hosts. 

Measuring the popularity of individual broadcast talent can be a tricky task. But, thanks to Twitch chat analytics, we can measure the most-mentioned broadcasting talents by Twitch chatters themselves. To ensure fair and comprehensive results, we not only searched for direct results of names in the chat, but also any common misspellings, nicknames, and memes of talent names. 

At the very top of the rankings, and the only talent to break 1K mentions, was Sjokz. Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere is one of the most recognisable faces in League of Legends broadcasting (and many other esports games too) for many fans, and her popularity was reflected in Twitch chat. 

Sjokz joined the Riot Games broadcasting team in 2014, and after many years working in the industry, her hard work was recognised as she won the “Best Esports host” award at the Game Awards in 2019. On top of her personal popularity, she was one of the two only talents to feature at every step of the main stage, which may slightly inflate her mentions compared to her colleagues. 

The only other talent to appear throughout the entire main stage of the event was Laure. Laure Valée is a well-known interviewer within the LoL scene. She was previously partnered with Sjokz as an interviewer at many past Worlds events, but this time she was on her own. 

Although Laure is best known for her interview work, most of her mentions in Twitch chat were accumulated when she appeared at the desk. The dynamics of chat mentions for the Playoffs show that Laure was mostly mentioned alongside Sjokz and other desk members, rather than while conducting any interviews.

  Laure (left) and Sjokz (right) working together as interviewers at Worlds 2019  

Emily and CaptainFlowers are the standouts in their roles as analyst and play-by-play caster, respectively. Emily works with the LCS as an analyst and was the only analyst at Worlds 2023 to feature during every match of the Playoffs stage. 

Emily received consistent mentions in Twitch chat whenever she appeared on screen at the desk but during the NRG and Weibo Gaming Quarterfinal is when mentions of her spiked. As an LCS analyst, Emily had a lot to say about NRG’s downfall in the Playoffs, and fans responded to her analysis with a wave of messages. 

CaptainFlowers, another LCS talent, cast some games towards the end of the Swiss Stage and the opening Quarterfinals match. He surprised fans by returning for the first semifinal match, kicking off the stream with his infectious energy. The chat erupted with a wave of chatters joyous to see him; CaptainFlowers was mentioned 74 times by Twitch chat, the most mentions any talent received within a 5-minute interval for the entire Playoffs.

In general, casters received the majority of their mentions when revealed to the stream. Talents such as Medic or Azeal received most of their mentions when they first appeared on screen and chatters celebrated their appearance. Only regular desk members, such as Sjokz and Emily, enjoyed consistent peaks in mentions in between maps. 

Excluding Sjokz and Laure as outliers, LCS-based talent was the most popular of all regions in Twitch chat. LCS talent recorded an average of 241 mentions per talent, far more than LCK talent which recorded an average of 104 mentions per talent. LPL talents, here meaning Munchables and Hysterics, were rarely mentioned during the Playoffs stage.

However, Munchables only worked during the Play-In stage and Hysterics during the Swiss Stage, making the fact that they received any mentions at all during the Playoffs something interesting. Wolf, Ender, and MarkZ were the only talents to not work during the Playoffs but still be mentioned by Twitch chat.

Twitch chat analytics can give some direct insight into the mind of the average viewer for any esports broadcast. Contact Esports Charts if you are interested in collaborating and seeing what detailed statistics of esports activities can do for you.