Top esports co-streamers by watch time and peak viewers in Q1 2026

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The first quarter of 2026 was packed with major events across esports’ most popular titles. Looking back across the jam-packed Q1 2026, Esports Charts presents the top co-streamers by total watch time and peak viewership across esports’ top titles.

Here's how the co-streaming landscape looked across each of them — who drove the numbers, which communities showed up in esports viewership trends, and what the data tells us about where creators stand today.

Who were the top League of Legends esports co-streamers for Q1 2026?

League of Legends had one of the busiest co-streaming quarters of any title in Q1 2026, bustling with gaming content creators. Marc "Caedrel" Lamont led all LoL co-streamers by a wide margin, generating 19.56M Hours Watched on Twitch — nearly double his nearest rival. He also topped the peak viewers table with 286,985 concurrent viewers: his personal high point for the quarter came during the LEC 2026 Versus, where Caedrel cheered on his own esports team, Los Ratones. 

When Los Ratones played, Caedrel was the primary viewing destination for English-speaking audiences; the LEC 2026 Versus split became the most-watched LEC event in four years, partly on the strength of that storyline. Caedrel's dominance of the English-language LoL co-streaming space has been building for years, but Q1 2026 offered a particularly clear demonstration of his reach. 

Gustavo "BaianoTV" Gomes ranked second by Hours Watched with 10.75M Hours Watched, broadcast across YouTube, Kick, and Twitch. The Brazilian creator is the most important Portuguese-language face for LoL esports, bringing South Americans at scale — a trend reinforced at First Stand 2026, where LOUD's participation drove strong Brazilian engagement. BaianoTV also led the peak viewers chart for the quarter in second place at 244K PV, earned during the CBLOL Cup 2026 grand final between LOUD and Red Candids.

Ibai "ibai" Llanos ranked third with 8.4M HW across Twitch and YouTube, representing the Spanish-language community. Though his activity in esports co-streaming has fluctuated in recent quarters, his presence during events continues to drive strong viewership from Spain and Latin America, especially for matches featuring his team Movistar KOI.

Kamel "kamet0" Kebir, the French co-owner of Karmine Corp, ranked fifth by Hours Watched, but rose to third by peak viewers with 181,377 — buoyed by the performance of KC's League of Legends roster during Q1. 

Korean creators Kim “phonics1” Min-kyo on SOOP Korea and Lee “울프” Jae-wan on Naver’s CHZZK topped their country’s co-streaming rankings, the latter falling slightly behind Vietnam’s Hoàng Luân. The LoL co-streaming ecosystem is extremely globally diverse, spanning English, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, French, Vietnamese-speaking fans and many more. The game's structure of simultaneous regional events throughout Q1 means co-streamers across all those languages had consistent content to broadcast.

Who were the top CS2 esports co-streamers for Q1 2026?

Q1 2026 was a standout period for CS2 viewership. IEM Kraków 2026 — which has now entered the all-time top ten most-popular Counter-Strike events in history — set the tone, peaking at over 1.38M viewers for its grand final. CS2 hosted many other top events throughout Q1, including PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026 and numerous BLAST events.

Igor "bySL4M" Sopov led all CS2 co-streamers in Q1 by watch time, accumulating 9.8M Hours Watched across Twitch and YouTube. It is a figure that reflects his consistent presence across both major events and everyday competitive play. Ivan "StRoGo" Shurpatov followed in second place with 8.6M Hours Watched, having reached his personal viewership high during the grand final of IEM Kraków 2026 when Team Vitality faced FURIA. 

Other top Russian-speaking streamers included Vadim "evelone2004" Kozakov, who led the PV chart with over 149K Peak Viewers according to his Twitch statistics, and Leonid "chopperinho" Vishnyakov, Team Spirit’s former IGL, who was benched from the active roster at the end of 2025. Since then, Chopper has gone on to become one of CS2’s most active and watched esports co-streamers. 

Mark "ohnePixel" Zimmermann was the only English-language co-streamer to reach the top of the Q1 rankings for CS2, appearing on both the total watch time and peak viewership leaderboards. While Q1 for CS2 was largely a Russian-language affair, OhnePixel remained popular, and Polish co-streamer Piotr “izak LIVE” Skowyrski took the final HW spot with 3.91M Hours Watched across Twitch and YouTube.

Who were the top Valorant esports co-streamers for Q1 2026?

Valorant's Q1 2026 was defined by the Kickoff events across all four VCT international leagues and, most significantly, VALORANT Masters Santiago 2026, which ran from February 28 to March 15 and reached over 883K Peak Viewers — the year's biggest Valorant viewership story by a wide margin.

The top co-streamer by Hours Watched was Pujan "GoFNS" Mehta with 4.43M HW on Twitch, making him the leading English-language Valorant co-streamer of the quarter. FFNS is a former professional player who transitioned to full-time content creation, and his tactical familiarity with the game gives his coverage an analytical depth that has translated into consistent viewership across the VCT Kickoff events and Masters Santiago.

Heitor "tck10" Tomazela placed second by watch time with over 3.6M Hours Watched across Twitch and YouTube. The Brazilian Cloud9 streamer is the most significant Portuguese-language Valorant co-streamer, and his coverage of the Americas Kickoff and Masters Santiago drew strong viewership from Brazil — a market that maintains a high level of investment in Valorant esports.

Oscar "Mixwell" Cañellas followed close behind Tck10, with 3.39M Hours Watched. Mixwell is also a former CS:GO and Valorant professional who transitioned into the content creation industry.  Mixwell anchors Spanish-language Valorant co-streaming and benefits from a loyal audience built over years of both competitive and content creation work.

Tarik "tarik" Celik ranked fourth by Hours Watched — the quarter's most-watched English personality after gofns, with deep ties to the game's North American competitive scene.

Ushida "Lazvell" Kouji of ZETA DIVISION, an former professional player, was fifth by Hours Watched with 2.9M HW across Twitch and YouTube, serving the Japanese-language audience that continues to be one of Valorant's most engaged. Japanese streamer Junichi Kato also appeared in the peak viewers table, reinforcing Japan's place as one of the VCT's most active co-streaming markets.

The peak viewers table told a notably different story from the Hours Watched rankings, with peaks driven by an unexpected source: French streamer Lucas "Squeezie" Hauchard with over 111,000 Peak Viewers cheering on Gentle Mates’ unexpected run during Masters Santiago. During the team’s international VCT debut, the team surprised with some strong results and the French Valorant audience, typically underrepresented at major VCT events, surged dramatically around their matches. 

Fellow Gentle Mates co-founder Corentin “Gotaga” Houssein´also co-streamed Gentle Mates matches, but was not as popular as his fellow M8’s member.

Who were the top Rocket League esports co-streamers for Q1 2026?

The RLCS 2026 - Boston Major was the defining Rocket League event of Q1. Held in February at the Agganis Arena in Boston, it set an all-time peak viewership record for the game at 624,316 concurrent viewers — surpassing the previous record by a significant margin. The French and English-speaking communities were the primary drivers of that audience, and those demographics show clearly in the co-streaming data.

Nicholas "Jynxzi" Stewart led all Rocket League co-streamers by a considerable margin, generating 2.04M Hours Watched across Twitch and YouTube, and hitting a peak of over 141K concurrent viewers — also the highest peak of any Rocket League co-streamer in Q1. His entry into Rocket League content in early 2026 was one of the quarter's major streaming stories in its own right. Jynxzi's co-stream of RLCS content delivered a peak audience that far exceeded what the game's native creator ecosystem would have generated independently.

French streamer "itachi_rl" ranked second by both Hours Watched and Peak Viewers, reflecting the consistent pull of the French-language Rocket League community — particularly during events where Team Vitality and Karmine Corp are competing. The crossover presence of "kamet0" in third by Peak Viewers underscores the overlap between French esports communities and the audience that follows familiar personalities across titles.

English-language streamer Austin "alphakep" Kepner ranked third by Hours Watched with 752K HW, making him the second most significant English-language Rocket League co-streamer of the quarter. Tyler "TenacityTv" Broce followed in fourth, with Arabic-language Kick streamer Waleed "w1llyv" Alshamali rounding out the Hours Watched top five — one of the more notable data points of the quarter, signalling the growing Arabic-language audience for Rocket League content and the increasing role Kick plays in serving communities.

Who were the top Rainbow Six Siege esports co-streamers for Q1 2026?

Throughout the first three months of 2026, Rainbow Six Siege esports was shaped by one event, the Six Invitational 2026 held in Paris in February. The tournament marked the game's annual world championship, and the co-streaming picture it produced reflects how concentrated Rainbow Six's viewership remains around a small number of high-impact creators.

By peak viewers, Jynxzi dominated. The Rainbow Six native reached over 69K Peak Viewers on Twitch during the Six Invitational, with tens of thousands more on his YouTube channel. For any esports title, having a single creator of Jynxzi's scale is an advantage. His presence at the Invitational delivered a peak that is difficult to replicate from any other single channel in the game's ecosystem.

However, in terms of Q1 total watch time, Brazilian creator Rafael “Razah” Ribeiro led with 705.5K Hours Watched, far more than any other creator. While he was only able to reach just over 7,000 Peak Viewers concurrent, his dedication and consistent broadcasts made him one of the most popular streamers of the quarter. Brazilian audiences have historically shown strong engagement with Rainbow Six esports, and razah is the primary Portuguese-language destination for that community.

Jason "beaulo" Doty ranked second by Hours Watched — one of the game's best-known professional players who built a significant streaming presence alongside his former competitive career. William "itsspoit" Löfstedt of Shopify Rebellion, an active professional player this time, also landed in third, just ahead of Jynxzi. The final HW spot was taken by another former professional player, this time André "neskwga" Oliveira, another Brazilian R6 player.