On Saturday, June 25, the all-time record for the most concurrent viewers on Twitch was broken. With 3.35 million viewers, the record is now held by the Spaniard Ibai Llanos Garatea (27): He organized and streamed a mix of a boxing event and show for five and a half hours. Ibai became popular in 2014 with his streams of League of Legends, since then he has exploded in popularity and is considered an internet celebrity in Spain.
What record is it? It is about the most concurrent viewers for a stream on Twitch.
Here in the statistics, it is about the column “All Time Peak Viewers”:
Fortnite and the USA Dominated Twitch for Years – That’s Over
Where did the record stand before?
- For a long time, the American Tyler “Ninja” Blevins held this record: He had 616,000 concurrent viewers in March 2018 when he played the online shooter during the peak of the Fortnite hype with rapper Drake.
- The Spanish Fortnite streamer “TheGrefg” later held the record with 2.47 million concurrent viewers – back on January 11, 2021, he got “his own skin in Fortnite.”
- But now the Spaniard “Ibai” has shattered this record: At its peak, 3.35 million people watched him.
These were Ibai’s predecessors:
5.5 Hours of a Huge Spectacle on Twitch
How did he set this record? On June 25, Ibai organized a big boxing event called “La Velada Del Año II”. It was supposed to be the “event of the year.” In 2021, he hosted a similar event and achieved great success.
The event lasted five and a half hours, and Ibai streamed it on his massive Twitch channel with 11 million followers:
- At the event, there were 5 boxing matches, filled in between with various acts, such as short concerts (via twitter).
- The sponsors of the event include Disney+, Spotify, Samsung, and PlayStation Plus.
- The event took place at the multipurpose hall “Badalona Olympic Pavilion”, which accommodates over 12,000 spectators. Otherwise, a basketball team usually plays there.
The stream had the highest number of viewers during the third fight between Momo and Viruzz.
There was a lot going on:
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Why is it so huge? Three factors come together:
- The Spanish-speaking Twitch surpassed the English-speaking Twitch in the last year – the creators there are huge on social media. Apparently, they are not only watched in Spain but also in South America. Ibai is not an isolated case: Several Spanish and Portuguese-speaking streamers are now among the world’s biggest streamers and are growing extremely fast.
- Gaming is currently in a crisis: Few major games are coming out. But Twitch has grown strongly during the pandemic. There seems to be a great desire to watch “typical TV events” on Twitch now – like “celebrity boxing.” In Germany, streamer Knossi has achieved similar successes with events like RTL 2.
- At other events, like the presentation of the PS5, viewers spread across multiple channels – however, Ibai managed to concentrate the viewers on his event.
Some German Twitch streamers are known for importing trends from abroad:
From LoL Streamer to Mainstream Entertainer
Who is Ibai? Ibai has a “typical streamer” career behind him: He became known for content related to a specific game, in his case with League of Legends.
Over the years, he emancipated himself from the game, moving increasingly toward a “general” direction, distancing himself somewhat from gaming, becoming an entertainer, and building a massive media presence.
Today he only occasionally plays the biggest games like LoL, Minecraft, or FIFA on his Twitch stream; otherwise, he spends a lot of time in “Just Chatting”.
Ibai now has his own LoL team. German influencers are following suit.
