Worlds 2023 opening day enjoys 22% increase in peak concurrent viewers compared to last year

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Worlds 2023’s main event kicked off today with the first round of Swiss Stage games. In our coverage of the Play-In stage, we noted that the two qualifying teams of the Play-In, Team BDS and GAM Esports, may have a significant positive effect on viewership for the event, and this seems to be the case. 

The first day of the main stage of Worlds 2023 started off strong. If Worlds 2023 keeps up the pace, it will continue the tradition of Worlds events setting new records for esports tournament viewership every year. 

Although it is still early in the event, the first-day viewership performance of the Swiss Stage is extremely positive for the Worlds event series. The match between T1 and Team Liquid started the day off strong, and the opening match of the day reached 1.66M Peak Viewers, an increase of 22.35% compared to the most popular match of the opening day at Worlds 2022.

  Viewership statistics for the opening day of Swiss Stage at Worlds 2023  

Critically, Worlds 2023 wasn’t only more popular at peak, but overall. All of the matches of the first day were hugely popular, with the least popular match of the day recording 1.27M Peak Viewers. Vietnamese viewership more than doubled compared to 2022, and the region is quickly becoming one of the key audiences for the Worlds event.  

Not only was Vietnamese important for viewership, but Korean also experienced significant growth this year, quickly closing the gap to the most popular language of the event, English. The growth of Asian language viewership for Worlds 2023 can also be seen in the Peak Viewers figure for platforms. 

As Vietnamese and Korean viewership has grown, the audience for YouTube broadcasts has also increased. These regions are known to prefer YouTube broadcasts, and the 2023 opening day saw YouTube-based broadcasts contribute 730.8K Peak Viewers to the events total. Compared to 2022, the world championship has doubled its viewership on YouTube, which now accounts for almost 50% of total Peak Viewers.

In terms of watch time, the 2023 event recorded 40% more hours of watch time on the opening day compared to 2022. The 2023 event was covered more thoroughly by official League of Legends esports channels from around the world and received more attention from community casters. Compared to 2022, the amount of channels to cover the opening day of Worlds 2023 groups almost tripled. Another factor that differs between this year and last year was the format of the Group Stage itself.

At Worlds 2022, teams were divided into four groups that would play inter-group matches, before advancing to Playoffs. Worlds 2023 features a brand new Swiss Stage, where the teams compete against each other through 5 rounds of matches. Swiss stage events see teams with comparable Win-Loss records play against each other, hopefully leading to fairer, closer, and more exciting matches to watch. Although we will have to keep an eye on the event as the Swiss Stage continues, first impressions are that the new format allowed the event to broadcast more matches, and had a positive effect on watch time for the event.

Worlds 2023 is shaping up to not only be the biggest esports event of 2023 but perhaps be the most popular Worlds event in the series’ history. As Worlds taps into growing demographics for the discipline, such as Vietnam, the viewership power of the event is quickly increasing.