Worlds 2024 set new Swiss Stage viewership record as T1 debut at event

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After a tight Play-In stage which saw MAD Lions KOI, GAM Esports, paiN Gaming, and PSG Talon qualify for the main event, Worlds 2024 kicked off its first day of Swiss matches on October 3. On only the main event’s opening day, Worlds 2024 reached millions of viewers thanks to a wide spread of Bo1 matches and set a new event series viewership record with the help of T1 and Korean audiences. 

Heading into the League of Legends World Championship main stage, some of the ideal teams for viewership qualified for the main stage. MAD Lions KOI’s qualification ensured strong co-casting followage from Spanish internet celebrity ibai, who is co-owner of the team, and the other three teams bring strong regional viewership from Vietnamese, Brazilian, and Chinese-speaking audiences.

The Worlds 2024 format means that the beginning of the Swiss Stage takes place as best-of-one matches, with elimination and qualification matches played as best-of-threes. This best-of-one beginning to the stage allows the event organizers to have every team play, meaning Worlds 2024 can benefit from numerous global audiences in one day. Esports Charts has collated the viewership statistics of the opening day, to explore how it broke records.

Worlds 2024 reached over 14.2M Hours Watched on its opening day, a 52.7% increase compared to last year. Across both total watch time and average viewership, the 2024 iteration of the Worlds series recorded significantly higher numbers than the previous year’s event, which became the most popular Worlds event ever.

The peak of 2.82M concurrent viewers was reached during T1’s game against Top Esports Gaming. Korean viewership was low during the event’s opening Play-In stage, with Korean fans not particularly interested in watching without a Korean team playing. Nevertheless, Korean fans were ready to go on the Swiss Stage’s first day, and came out of the gate as the event’s largest audience of the day, with 734.6K Korean Peak Viewers recorded.

Korean fans were also happy to support Gen.G’s game against Weibo Gaming, which became the day’s second-most-popular match with 2.31M Peak Viewers recorded. Generally, matches on the first day of the main event received strong viewership. The teams who qualified through the Play-In stage were ideal for Worlds 2024, allowing the event strong diversified international followage; Vietnamese reached 529.3K PV on the day, making it the highest ever Vietnamese League of Legends viewership for a non-playoff match.

Other regional audiences, such as Brazilian and French audiences showed strong viewership on the opening day, as well as Spanish and Chinese-speaking fans. Japanese-language viewership was disappointingly low, likely because Japanese team Fukuoka SoftBank HAWKS failed to qualify for the main stage, having been eliminated 0-2 from the Play-In. To get a better idea of how these audiences are watching Worlds, explore the top channels of the event presented by Esports Charts.

The opening day of the Swiss Stage saw the official LCK YouTube Live broadcast dominate viewership, with 397.3K PV recorded for the official Korean broadcast. Of course, the stream reached its peak viewership for T1’s game against their Chinese rival. Interestingly, the Vietnam Championship Series and Caedrel also reached their peaks during T1’s game. The official VCS account saw 311.4K Peak Viewers for T1’s game, far more than they received during GAM Esports’ match.

Caedrel, who represents an international English-speaking audience for his co-casts, also reached his peak viewership during T1’s game. Despite regional audiences like Vietnamese having their own team to support at Worlds 2024, Vietnamese fans were more interested in watching T1’s debut at Worlds 2024.

In summary, the opening day of the Worlds 2024 main stage benefitted from strong international audiences, bringing together the best regions of League of Legends esports viewership. As it stands, Worlds 2024 is massively outpacing last year’s Worlds 2023, which was the most popular esports event ever. Keep an eye on the live-updating viewership data for Worlds 2024 through Esports Charts’ tournament page.