Japanese and Vietnamese viewership grows at Worlds 2023 as regional teams fight for a spot in the main event

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The League of Legends 2023 World Championship is off to a solid start for the event’s viewership. The second day of the Play-In continued to bring in viewership as fans from around the world supported their favourite team, and for the second day in a row, the event was able to reach over 1,000,000 peak concurrent viewers.

Although Day 2 received solid viewership, it fell slightly short of the viewership reached during the first day. Team BDS were surprised by the performance of the Vietnamese Team Whales, who managed an upset 2-1 victory over the Frenchmen. Team BDS took an early lead winning map 1, but Team Whales managed to turn it around and finish the match 2-1 with some strong performances in the final two maps. CBTC Flying Oyster against DetonatioN FocusMe was a more straightforward game, with the Taiwanese roster taking a swift 2-0 victory against the Japanese team.

Worlds 2023 Play-In Day 2 viewership

The second day of the Play-In stage covers the first round of the B Bracket, with four teams from around the globe competing. The French Team BDS roster was scheduled to play against the VCS Dusk runner-up Team Whales, and the LJL Summer champion DetonatioN FocusMe was scheduled to play CTBC Flying Oyster, the PCS Summer runner-up. 

Both of these matches received over 1M+ hours of watch time, but the match between Team BDS and Team Whales was the more popular of the two, reaching over 1M Peak Viewers.

While viewership for the match between DFM and CTBC was low compared to the other match of Day 2, the match-up still managed to bring in 1.06M Hours Watched and recorded 659K Peak Viewers. Despite the lower Peak Viewers figure, fan support from the land of the rising sun was key for Day 2 viewership. Compared to Day 1 of the event, the Average Viewers figure for Japanese-speaking broadcasts rose by 37% and reached a new PV, 46.4K. 

On top of this, Vietnamese support for the Team Whales roster was hugely important for the day's viewership. Vietnamese-speaking audiences were some of the most influential to the event for its Day 2 viewership, and it was one of the most popular languages of the event. Vietnamese-language broadcasts were the second-most-watched language of the event and the second-most popular language by Peak Viewers.

However, both Vietnamese teams at the event, Team Whales and GAM Esports, are competing for a spot in the main event. Although Team Whales were victorious over Team BDS, GAM Esports lost their match yesterday against LOUD 0-2. If both Vietnamese teams are knocked out of the event, the viewership from this region will likely suffer, just as in 2022 when GAM Esports failed to advance past their Group at Worlds and Vietnamese viewership fell by roughly 50% for the remainder of the Group Stage.

In total, Day 2 of Worlds 2023 received 3.41M Hours Watched, almost half a million hours more than what was recorded on Day 1. Both matches on Day 1 of the event ended with a 2-0 scoreline, but the match between Team BDS and Team Whales went to a third map, which was advantageous for the Airtime and therefore watch time of the day. Although Day 2 of the event recorded almost half a million more hours of watch time, the average concurrent viewers figure fell by 9%. 

Day 3 of the Play-In stage will host the first Round 2 match of both Brackets A and B. In Bracket A, PSG Talon and LOUD will compete to secure a spot in the final Qualifier match, with the winner of their match earning the top seed for the Qualification Match. After this game, Team Whales and CBTC Flying Oyster will compete for the top seed in the other Qualification Match. The action kicks off at 7am GMT with LOUD against PSG Talon, keep on top of the event schedule and viewership statistics for the event as it updates in real-time with the Worlds 2023 Tournament page.