Not long after celebrating the game’s 10th anniversary, League of Legends has proven that it’s more alive than ever before.
For the first time in recent years, the League of Legends World Championship set new event records for all three key viewership indicators: peak viewers, average viewers, and total hours watched.
The overall viewership numbers for all stages provided by ESCharts show that Worlds 2019 reached 3,985,787 peak viewers, 1,012,559 average concurrent viewers, and 137,876,707 hours watched.
The League of Legends World Championship has failed to exceed previous records for all three indicators in recent years. Although the average viewership for Worlds 2018 came in higher at 631,483 vs. 556,081 from the year before, the event didn’t beat the peak viewership record set by T1 vs. RNG in 2017.
The event smashed all prior records this year, however.
Much of the event’s success can be attributed to the popularity of SK Telecom T1. Although the Korean team was knocked out in the semifinal stage by eventual runners-up G2 Esports, the series set peak viewership records not just for League of Legends competition but for esports as a whole.
Peak viewership increased 94% from the numbers realized in Worlds 2018 in which the final between Invictus Gaming and Fnatic topped out at 2,050,475 viewers. The T1 vs. G2 semifinal series beat the Worlds 2019 Grand Final in terms of viewership with 285,242 more peak viewers than FunPlus Phoenix vs. G2 Esports (3,700,545 viewers).
T1’s quarterfinal matchup with Splyce came in with the third-highest peak viewership of the tournament at 2,518,157 viewers on October 27.
Viewership data is sourced from Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, VK Live, Afreeca TV, Mixer, Garena Live, Sports Naver, and Nonolive.
