Riot Announces World Championship Viewership Numbers
With the World Championships wrapped up for around a week now, Riot has made the viewership numbers of the event available to the public.
In a release today, the company summarizes stream numbers (in multiple languages), along with the TV viewers in Asian countries. These numbers represent both peak viewership and the amount of unique viewers over the entire weekend.
More than 8,282,000 unique viewers tuned in for the World Finals via TV and stream worldwide (including 2,402,225 TV viewers in Korea and China)
At peak, over 1,154,000 people were watching online alone (not counting any TV numbers) during the World Finals
Over the course of both the World Playoffs and Finals, people watched 24,230,688 hours of League of Legends
These numbers are unprecedented in eSports history, and really give us an image of how big this event was. Many of us who watched via stream were limited to that avenue’s numbers, so it’s nice to get a “big picture” summary.
It may also be great for future sponsors, as well; companies being aware of the massive amounts of eyeballs participating in a stream may entice them to invest in League of Legends’ future. Riot has stated that they operated this event at a loss, but in doing so they set a precedent that future events will have the potential to build on.
One has to wonder, as well, if the championship teams participating had any effect on the figures: would the 2.4m viewers in Asian countries be watching something else if it wasn’t Azubu Frost or the Taipei Assassins in the finals? Sadly, we may never know.
Category: S2 World Finals, Scene News
About the Author (Author Profile)
Matt Demers is a journalist, columnist and caster. He writes about League of Legends, comic books and other nerdy subjects. You can follow him on Twitter at @MattDemers, and check out his other work at http://justmatt.ca!Subscribe
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