There are two major Western leagues for League of Legends: LEC in Europe and LCS in North America. Both attract a decent portion of public interest and are constantly being compared to each other. This time we decided to talk about the most popular teams of the championships.

We will divide the article into three parts. First, we will talk about the main competition in Europe. Then we will go to the participants of the North American Championship. Finally, we will conclude this with a comparison of results of these two leagues. The ranking itself will be based solely on the average viewers for the team matches.

This season, Fnatic has become the most popular team of LoL European Championship. The matches of this team have attracted 262 thousand average viewers. The total sum of hours watched for the two splits has reached the mark of 16 million.

It seems that for Fnatic, the final of LoL Worlds 2018 was not without consequences. Everyone was eager to see how the team will show itself after such a performance. The departure of Caps (the central star of the team) from the roster has added even more tension.

The team, led by a former stage star, Ocelote, came only second in the European series. The “samurai” have attracted 256 thousand average viewers. The total hours watched for two parts of the league have reached 13 million.

G2 Esports has fallen short of earning the gold of the ranking by less than 8 thousand viewers. This is despite the acquisition of MSI champion's title as well as participation and victories in two finals. What else should they do to achieve the title of the most popular team?

Third place in the popularity ranking went to Origen. The matches of the team were watched by 212 thousand average viewers. The total hours watched have reached 10 million.

It is also worth noting that most of these numbers were received as part of the LEC spring split performance. To be more precise, 69% of this result was received in the spring. At that time the team has arrived the second in the regular part and participated in the playoff final.

American counterparts have shown themselves in a similar way. The representatives of Team Liquid became the most popular in 2019. The team received 244 thousand average viewers. The hours watched have reached a figure of 13 million 284 thousand.

Such a result was quite predictable – the team's roster has occupied the top spot for the whole year. Liquid has won twice in both the regular parts of the LCS and the matches for the title itself.

The guys from Team SoloMid became the second in the region. The team has gathered 240 thousand average viewers at their matches, as well as displayed the result of 13 million 626 thousand hours watched.

It is worth noting that for TSM it is the second year already without a trip to the World Championship. The team has great difficulties when it comes decisive fights, although when it comes to the regular part it is constantly located in the top portion of the list. In 2019, many followed their attempt to correct the situation – and although this did not work out, they have managed to gather a large enough amount of spectators at their matches.

The bronze of the North American Championship popularity ranking went to Cloud9. Team has collected 213 thousand average viewers and 11 million hours watched.

In this case, we have strong contestants for the league's middle positions. The team has not reached the title of the best for a long time already. However, last few years it makes its way to the main championship of the year and follows with good enough performance. This time, the situation has not changed, and С9 continued the tradition – with only one caveat: at LoL Worlds 2019, for the first time (since 2015) ever the team's roster did not manage to proceed further than the group stage.

When making a summary of both regions to derive a single big picture, we got an extremely interesting situation. Out of the top 10, only three representatives belong to LCS. The top of the North American Championship has featured only Liquid, TSM and С9. These teams took the 3rd-5th spots.

In all the other cases, we are seeing teams from Europe. This happened because of a rather commonplace reason – the debut of LEC. The European Championship has finished its first year on a high note. The difference in results between LCS and LEC has caused such an incredible gap between the competitions.

Along with this, we can name the most popular team of the West - Fnatic. Players of this organization were able to achieve the highest score among the main competitions of the western hemisphere.

Despite the fact that Rekkles and company did not manage repeat their incredible performance in 2019, they are still the most popular in their league. Even the winners of the Mid-Season Invitational, G2 Esports, could not prevent this.

An interesting year awaits us ahead. In each league there have been changes both to the lists of participants and to their respective rosters. We will continue to monitor this topic in order to share our observations with you.