Karmine Corp's absence felt, but RLCS 2024 - Major 2: London remained highly popular

Loading

The 2024 season's second Major event, RLCS 2024 - Major 2: London, was held at the Copper Box Arena in London from June 20 to 23. With the world's best Rocket League players battling it out for a substantial prize pool and crucial RLCS Points, it ended as one of the most popular events in the discipline, although things could have been better if not for the absence of a crucial name.

In the Grand Final, G2 Stride eased past Team Falcons 4:1 to clinch the title and make up for a second-place finish at the year's first Major. The winner also took home $75,000 out of a total purse of $255,000 and 40 RLCS Points, while the runner-up pocketed $45,000 and 32 RLCS Points.

  RLCS 2024 - Major 2: London viewership stats and most popular matches   

The RLCS 2024 - Major 2: London hit 316.9K Peak Viewers during the Semifinals between Team Falcons and Gentle Mates Alpine. As one of the most popular sides in the game, the latter tends to draw a massive crowd, especially from its home nation of France.

It is undoubtedly helped by the fact that Gotaga, the ex-professional Call of Duty esports player and streamer, is one of its three owners who supports it and attracts a larger audience to its matches by co-streaming its games. French viewers' importance can also be seen in the fact that three of the five most popular games have at least one representative from the country, including one meeting between two of its teams.

There was a surprise leader when looking at the most popular sides by average online viewers, although two French names did make the top five. Their presence and the fact that all three sides made the Playoffs helped the RLCS 2024 - Major 2: London notch 2.9M Hours Watched and 98.3K Average Viewers over around 30 hours of airtime.

Coming back to the highly-followed French teams and their star streamer owners, Gotaga continued to be the most successful individual channel. However, like this Rocket League competition, his stats were down compared to the first Major — where Gentle Mates Alpine went all the way — as the team could only finish as semifinalists in the UK leg.

A major miss was Karmine Corp, whose president and co-owner is Kamet0. The French Twitch megastar also goes live for his team's most important matches but with the side unable to qualify for the year's second Major, the crowd it and its owner bring were sorely missed in London. This is a big reason for the RLCS 2024 - Major 2: London perhaps not achieving its full viewership potential. This also saw the French language see its overall share of the watch time fall by over 13%, with the top five finishes of G2 Stride, Spacestation Gaming, and FURIA Esports helping English and Portuguese make gains.

  Most popular Rocket League competitions of all time   

Nevertheless, the success of some of the most followed sides ensured this event finished as the sixth most popular tournament ever in Rocket League history. Interestingly, the RLCS 2024 Major 1 had ended second on this table, behind only the RLCS 2022-23 World Championship.

This also ensured that the top six competitions on this leaderboard have all come since 2022, reiterating the game's renaissance and its now heavy reliance on France being its leading demographic. That Psyonix manages to keep things fresh every season, including tweaks to the Rocket League Championship Series, has also played a part in this recent purple patch.

  Viewership stats of the two RLCS Majors held in 2024   

Essentially, Rocket League continues to see record-high numbers recently thanks to extensive regional coverage in France, especially from major co-streamers, many of whom own teams participating in its tournaments. That also means that these events' viewership performances depend heavily on how far these teams advance, as seen in the difference in the two Majors’ audience reach without the participation of one major name in Karmine Corp.

With both Majors in the 13th season of the RLCS done and dusted, the focus turns to the inaugural Esports World Cup 2024. With $250,000 at stake, qualified teams will want to give it their best shot while fine-tuning things in preparation for the season-ending RLCS 2024 - World Championship.