ALGS 2023 Split 2 Playoffs breaks 10M hours watch time thanks to new format

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The Apex Legends Global Series 2023 Split 2 Playoffs finished up on the 16th of July in the Copper Box Arena in London, England. The penultimate tournament of the 22-23 circuit saw North American organisation DarkZero Esports become the ultimate champions of the event. The organisation, represented by two professional Australian players and an American, took home $300,000 USD and 500 Playoff Points from the event.

Despite a 13th-place finish at the Split 1 Playoffs this year, the DarkZero players are the 2022 series champions and showed off their proper form in London. They went into the finals with TSM, this year’s favourites, shadowing over them. In the Finals of the event TSM looked strong and going into Round 7, the final round of the event, DarkZero Esports were three points behind their rivals. However, TSM went out in 15th place with only one kill to their name and DarkZero Esports capitalised on their opportunity, winning the final round and securing enough points to win the event. 

As we looked at in our article analysing the Day 1 statistics for the event, the event kicked off a major success: ranking in the top ten most-watched Apex Legends tournaments of all time. The form continued throughout the event, making the ALGS 2023 Split 2 Playoffs one of the most-watched events ever. 

ALGS 2023 Split 2 Playoffs viewership statistics

Viewership for the ALGS 2023 Split 2 Playoffs remained high throughout the event: with the event consistently keeping above 200K concurrent viewers throughout the Group Stage, the event amassed a monster 10.57M Hours Watched. This marks the second-ever tournament in Apex Legends history to break the 10M milestone for total watch time. In terms of Airtime, the broadcast did go on longer than normal for the discipline, with only two hours separating the event from the longest broadcast in ALGS history.

One key reason for the higher Airtime is the brand-new format for the 22-23 season, which was covered in our Day 1 article. To summarise, instead of two Group Stage matches taking place during each timeslot, each match had its own timeslot this time around. This proved to be a major success for the series, with the change requiring them to go live early on Thursday instead of on Friday, viewership remained consistent throughout. 

There was no meaningful drop in viewership during the Group Stage compared to last year’s Split 2 Playoffs, fans remained insatiable for professional Apex Legends gameplay. With Sunday being dedicated to the Finals alone, viewership skyrocketed as fans from all over the world tuned in to see who can call themselves the favourites heading into the 2023 Championship. As visible in the graphic above, viewership slowly crept and crept upwards throughout the finals event, each round reaching a higher peak than the last. Viewership came to a climax in the final round of the event, as 578K viewers concurrently tuned into the various broadcasts of the event.

Most watched streams of the ALGS 2023 Split 2 Playoffs

The official Apex Legends Twitch channel was the most-favoured broadcast for fans to watch the event, with the playapex channel drawing in 131K Peak Viewers during the sixth round of the event. Compared to Split 1 of this year, the channel saw a 9% increase in Peak Viewers and 42% increase in Hours Watched. However, with only 21% of the total watch time for the event this year being due to the official account, many viewers were interested in community casters instead. 

Nicewigg, an American caster currently signed to 100 Thieves, was the most popular community caster of the event. The American streamer drew in a huge amount of viewership for a community caster. The 100T caster reached a personal best on the first day of the event, amassing 350K Hours Watched and his Peak Viewers figure for the event marks his second-most-popular stream ever, following behind last year's ALGS Champions event. 

Various other international community casters from around the world also received considerable viewership as fans scrambled to support their favourite local team.

Languages & Platforms performance for the ALGS 2023 Split 2 Playoffs

English was the favourite language in terms of viewership, making up almost half of the total watch time for the S-tier tournament. However, Japanese did not remain far behind. This shouldn’t be a surprise, as Apex Legends is the second-most-watched videogame for Japanese viewers across all platforms; the game ranks merely within the top ten globally. 

With four Japanese teams attending the event, viewership from the country was extreme during the Group Stages, even besting out English at points. When three of these four teams made it into the Finals of the events, Japanese viewership was strong, coming out just behind English in the data. 

Regions from around the world which make up a large percentage of the player base for Apex Legends also have considerable viewership, enough to be statistically relevant. 

Turning to the most popular platforms, Twitch managed to become the most-favoured platform of the event. Being the favoured streaming platform for esports in the English-speaking sphere, it was never in doubt that the large English-speaking fanbase of the discipline would push Twitch to the top.

Comparison of ALGS events

Comparison of top ALGS events in both Hours Watched and Peak Viewers

Since its inception in 2021, the Apex Legends Global Series has quickly become one of the most-watched esports event series in the industry. The popular Battle Royale game regularly brings in hundreds of thousands of viewers from around the world, with the global events seeing all sorts of nationalities attend. 

The ALGS 2023 Split 2 Playoffs was the second-most-watched event in the series’ history, falling just short of the 2022 Championship. The 2022 Split 2 Playoffs maintains its spot as the event with the highest concurrent viewers ever recorded for the discipline, when Japanese underdogs Reignite snatched the event away from Team Liquid in the final round of the event when the American organisation failed to score any points. 

Nevertheless, the 2023 Split 2 Playoffs was a major success and proof of concept for the new event format. Despite averaging roughly 50K fewer Average Viewers than the final two tournaments of last year, the event’s extended Airtime and Thursday viewership helped it to become the most successful event of the year by far in terms of watch time. 

With the ALGS 2023 Championship coming up, viewership for Apex Legends is healthy and the new event format has already been proven to be a major success. The ultimate event of the 22-23 series takes place a little north of London in the city of Birmingham. Kicking off on the 6th of September and with $2,000,000 USD up for grabs, the event may very well be the most-watched event in the discipline's history. Keep up to date with all the data and follow the tournament’s success here with Esports Charts.