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After a tight play-in phase that 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 action on October 3. On the opening day of the main event alone, Worlds 2024 reached millions of viewers thanks to the massive reach of Bo1 matches and set a new record in viewership for the event series with the help of the T1 audience and the Korean audience.
Heading into the League of Legends World Championship Main Stage, some viewership-perfect teams have qualified for the Main Stage. MAD Lions KOI’s qualification ensured a strong following from Spanish internet celebrity ibai, the team’s co-owner, and the other three teams who brought in strong regional viewership from Vietnamese, Brazilian and Chinese speaking audiences.
We cannot count Chinese live streaming platforms in our statistics, as publicly available data from these sites is unreliable and not comparable to other platforms. Our Chinese language statistics reflect Chinese viewership on platforms outside mainland China, such as Twitch and YouTube Live.
The 2024 World Championship format means that the start of the Swiss stage will be played on a best-of-one basis, with the elimination and qualifying matches played on a best-of-three basis. This better start on stage allows event organizers to have every team play, meaning the 2024 Worlds can benefit from multiple global audiences in a single day. Esports Charts collected opening day viewing statistics to explore how records were broken.
The 2024 World Series reached more than 14.2 million viewing hours on its opening day, an increase of 52.7% compared to last year. In terms of total viewing time and average viewership, the 2024 edition of the World Championship recorded significantly higher numbers than the previous year’s event, which became the most popular global event of all time.
A peak of 2.82 million concurrent viewers was reached during the T1 match against Top Esports Gaming. Korean viewership was low during the opening Play-In phase of the event, as Korean fans were not particularly interested in watching without a Korean team playing. However, Korean fans were ready to go for the first day of the Swiss stage, and came out of the gate as the largest audience for the event on the day, with 734.6 thousand viewers recorded at the Korean peak.
Korean fans were also happy to support Gen.G’s match against Weibo Gaming, which became the second most popular match of the day with 2.31 million views recorded. Overall, the matches on the first day of the main event received strong viewership. The teams that qualified through the direct play stage were ideal for the 2024 World Championship, giving the event a strong and diverse international following; The Vietnamese reached 529.3k PV on the day, making it the highest ever viewership in Vietnamese League of Legends for a non-playoff match.
Other regional fans, such as Brazilian and French fans, showed strong viewership on opening day, as well as Spanish and Chinese speaking fans. Japanese language viewership was disappointingly low, likely due to Japanese team Fukuoka SoftBank HAWKS failing to qualify for the main stage, after being eliminated 0-2 from the Play-In. To get a better idea of how these audiences watch tournaments, explore the best event-specific channels Esports Charts has to offer.
The opening day of the Swiss Theater saw the LCK’s YouTube live stream dominate viewership, with 397.3k photos recorded for the official Korean broadcast. Of course, the highest viewership broadcast was for T1’s match against their Chinese rival. Interestingly, Vietnam and Caedrel’s championship series also reached its climax during the T1 match. The official VCS account saw 311.4k views for the T1 match, which is much more than they got during the GAM Esports match.
Caedrel, which represents the English-speaking international audience for its co-actors, reached peak viewership during the T1 match. Although regional fans like Vietnamese have their own team to support in the 2024 World Championship, Vietnamese fans were more interested in watching T1’s debut in the 2024 World Championship.
In short, the opening day of the Worlds 2024 main stage benefited from a strong international crowd, bringing together the best viewing areas for League of Legends esports. Right now, Worlds 2024 is significantly ahead of last year’s Worlds 2023, which was the most popular esports event ever. Monitor live updated viewership data for the 2024 World Championship through the tournament page on Esports Charts.
