Riot Games runs 14 professional esports leagues worldwide. The European and North American League of Legends Championship Series (hereby referred to as EU LCS and NA LCS , respectively) are the only two in which the central broadcast production is for English-speaking audiences. Both these competitions are divided into two annual seasons: the Spring and the Summer Splits. Each culminates in a two-day weekend finals event at an external venue.

The Summer Split holds a level of additional importance in the competitive calendar, as the winning team from each region automatically qualifies for the League of Legends World Championship in November. The following breakdown looks at viewership data, on Twitch, for both regions across the weekend—and was compiled using TEO’s Viewership tool.

EU LCS Spanish Broadcast Sees 38.7% Rise in Total Hours Watched



This year, the EU LCS finals were held in at the Palacio Vistalegre in Madrid, Spain. The grand finals were between the esports division of German soccer club Schalke 04 , and seven-time EU LCS winners Fnatic . The competition was broadcast on both Twitch and YouTube, with the Twitch broadcast split across eight language broadcasts:

English: Riot Games

Riot Games French: O’Gaming

O’Gaming Spanish: LVP

LVP Polish: ESL Poland

ESL Poland Hungary: Magyar LoLTV

Magyar LoLTV Italian: PG Esports

PG Esports German: Summoners Inn

Summoners Inn Dutch: Gamers First

The maximum concurrent viewership across all these language channels during the finals was 353.2K. Around 65.1% of this came through the main English language broadcast on Riot Games’ Twitch channel, which peaked at 230.0K. This was a 30K decrease from the max CCV of the Spring split, but a 51.3% increase from the last Summer final, which peaked at 151.9K on the main channel.

Total hours watched for all Twitch channels broadcasting the EU and NA LCS finals.

The finals broadcast for the EU LCS accrued over 1.0M total hours watched across all language streams, with 606.1K (58.2%) coming from the main English language broadcast.

It’s worth noting that the average concurrent viewership (avg CCV) for the main English broadcast has fallen from 148.35K for the Spring finals to 99.4K last weekend. It has, however, risen since last Summer’s event, which had an avg CCV of 89.1K.

The European segment of professional League of Legends is unique from the perspective of viewership diversity. The last six roadshow events were all held in different countries, sometimes bolstered by one-time broadcasting agreements made with local partners. For example, last weekend’s Summer finals were showcased on Movistar Esports—a multi-channel esports TV network in Spain, owned by operated by the sponsor of the event, Telefónica-owned brand Movistar.

LVP, which showcased a Spanish-language broadcast of the event, saw a 38.7% increase in total hours watched when compared to its coverage of the Spring finals. Local partners such as these are a likely to play an enhanced role in EU LCS competition moving forward, as Riot Games not only seeks ten long-term partners for the 2019 season (all of whom will have to pay a minimum €8M entry fee), but also receives pitches from individual cities seeking to host these events.

NA LCS Finals Sees 30% Drop in Average Viewership from Spring Split



From a competitive structure standpoint, the European and North American regions are almost identical. The Summer final for the NA LCS was held at the Oracle Arena in Oakland—the current home of NBA team the Golden State Warriors, parent organization of NA LCS partner team the Golden Guardians .

All of the multi-language partners listed above also showcase the NA LCS finals, however the viewership is significantly less, primarily due to less regional attachment to the teams and players among European fans. The official English language broadcast of the finals reached a peak viewership of 260.4K, which was 25.3% less than the Spring finals broadcast, which sat at at 326.4K. The average concurrent viewership (avg CCV) for the finals broadcast on Riot’s channel was also down from 213.5K in the Spring finals, to 148.6K in Summer.

There was a considerable pushback against Riot Games’ esports events earlier this year, specifically when the publisher opted to host the NA LCS Spring finals in The Fillmore in Miami. This 2,700 capacity venue is considerably smaller than the 19.5K of the Oracle Arena, which hosted the Summer finals. While more fans were ultimately able to attend locally and cheer their favourite teams on, viewership—on Twitch at least—North American League of Legends doesn’t appear to have seen any major growth for the second half of 2018.

Note: In 2017, Riot Games split its broadcasts of the EU and NA LCS across two separate Twitch channels.

Across the entire weekend, the Riot Games’ Twitch channel accrued 2.8M total hours watched. This includes not just the broadcasts for the EU and NA LCS finals, but also the third-place matches that took place the day before, plus reruns. Interestingly, this is only 90.0K more than the weekend of the Spring finals weekend, but 410.0K (17.8%) more than the total viewership for last Summer’s finals.

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