Hey everyone, if you got to read our latest DataViz Monday newsletter or kept an eye open on social networks for ELeague viewership data, you might have come across the 1st version of the infographic below, comparing live viewerships of Turner’s newly-launched ELeague and sports on TV.

ANALYSIS

This infographic compares live viewerships for 9 sample contents. I’ll go through each of them, from left to right, from Lirik on Twitch to NBA on ABC.

LIRIK on TWITCH: 29K

We start with the exception: Lirik has very little to do with esports and even less with traditional sports. But he happens to be the man spearheading a new wave of entertainers which could be dubbed Twitchers, after their Youtube counterparts, Youtubers. So Lirik is kind of the Pewdiepie of gaming live streams and I thought it was interesting to see where he stands compared to esports and sports viewerships: not that far. Of course producing content for Lirik is much (MUCH MUCH MUCH.) cheaper than ELeague but there are very few Lirik’s. He enters the same kind of category as Rihanna, Drake or Franck Sinatra: his skills and popularity are rather hard to put into words, but they’re extremely powerful and rare and generate very strong emotional bonds with their audience.

ELEAGUE on TWITCH: 53K

53K for a CSGO pro gaming league on Twitch is a very good number, easily beating ECS and ESL Pro League. But truly we’ll have to see how it goes through time: ELeague had a lof hype carrying it among the hardcore online audience, everyone wanted to see what it was like. And it was really nice, with never-seen before production value for esports. The viewership has gone slightly for Week 2: we’ll have to wait for a few weeks before we see what “cruising speed” looks like for good.

For reference, CSGO Majors, the “Grand Slams” of CSGO, generated average viewerships >300,000 viewers on Twitch only.

MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER (MLS) on ESPN: 245K

So here we have the 1st sport that’s actually beaten by esports viewership-wise. How much did the rights for MLS cost? I didn’t do the research but you get my point.

ELEAGUE on TBS: 321K

Is 321K a good number? I’ve seen all kinds of reactions following the publishing of EL viewership numbers: for some they prove success, for some they prove failure. Funny, heh.

My opinion is that EL is already a nice success viewership-wise. Traditional succesful sports have habits and cycles that pour in viewers almost automatically: EL has to build these habits and cycles with their TV audience but their numbers already look pretty good. Not to mention the viewership grew on Week 2.

For a more in-depth analysis from someone with more of a media background than myself, I highly recommend Manny Anekal’s article as it covers the question of EL’s viewership under most major angles.

Also interesting to note that when pasted on TV, ELeague’s Twitch viewership gets multiplied by 6: in 2016, not all people potentially interested in esports are glued to Twitch, there is major growth potential for esports on TV.

NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION (NBA) on NBA TV: 345K

Woooow! So ELeague would be that close to the NBA?!… Well not exactly as NBA TV doesn’t air the most exciting matches, which are usually sold to more popular networks such as TNT, ESPN and ABC, as you can see with the rest of the graph.

But even then, if EL can compete with some of the NBA, that’s something that should be mentionned and understood as extremely positive as the NBA has to be as popular a pro sports league as you can find around the world.

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE (NHL) on NBCSN: 345K

345K is for all NHL Games broadcasted to US households, not the least interesting ones only: this numbers gives you an idea of the difference in popularity between the NHL and the NBA. Once again EL doesn’t look ridiculous at all.

NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION (NBA) on ESPN, TNT and ABC: 1.7M, 1.7M and 3.9M

All of a sudden, things start getting serious. The NBA matches aired on these channels are the cream of the crop of recurring sports entertainment. And it shows with the numbers: these are the Christmas specials, the finals rematches, the top contenders showdowns.

At this point in looking at the graph, it’s easy to understand how much room there is left for esports to grow.

NBA on ABC is watched 65x more than EL on Twitch. Will esports ever reach those heights? I think so… but I also think the game that will allow such popularity wasn’t created yet.

UPDATE & SOURCES

Infographic update notes:

new title: now more meaningful

new score for Lirik: now aggregating 2 weeks of data instead of one, lowered to 29k from 31k

new score for ELeague on Twitch: now aggregating 2 weeks of data instead of one, lowered to 53k from 57k

new score for ELeague on TBS: now using the average viewers number for the 3 hours of their weekly telecast instead of only the 1st hour , also aggregating 2 weeks of data instead of one, lowered to 321k from 509k

Sources:

Twitch data: www.gamoloco.com

MLS on ESPN: http://worldsoccertalk.com/2015/10/27/fox-sports-and-espn-both-see-gains-in-mls-tv-viewership-compared-to-last-season/

NHL on NBCSN: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/04/15/nhl-regular-season-sets-viewership-records-across-nbc-nbcsn/

ELeague on TBS: https://www.turner.com/story/eleague%E2%80%99s-opening-week-drives-audience-engagement-across-all-platforms

NBA on NBA TV, TNT, ESPN and ABC: http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2016/04/15/nba-sees-jump-in-tv-ratings-for-regular-season/

Thank you Manny Anekal for helping me put some of these numbers together.