On the weekend, the two semi-finals of the Worlds 2019 took place in League of Legends. The duel between Europe and Korea set a new viewer record and is now the most-watched eSports match of all time.
Which game broke the record? On Sunday, November 3rd, the teams SK Telecom 1 and G2 Esports faced off. Both are very popular in their region, but also beyond.
The fourth duel between the two teams then achieved the highest viewer count of all time. According to Esports Charts, almost 4 million people watched the exciting duel at its peak simultaneously. Chinese viewers were even excluded from this number.
At the peak, the following viewers watched:
- Nearly 1.56 million people on Twitch
- Nearly 1.94 million people on YouTube
- Additionally, other platforms like Afreeca and Garena from Korea, VK from Russia, or Facebook were included in the statistics.
Who held the record before? With 3.99 million simultaneous viewers, the duel between the two star teams beat the previous record by almost 1.5 million viewers. This record was already set at the Worlds 2019 between Splyce and SKT1 in the group stage.
The most successful events behind the LoL Worlds 2019 are:
- Fortnite World Cup Finals 2019 – 2.33 million viewers at peak.
- LoL Worlds 2017 – 2.10 million viewers at peak (Final).
- LoL Worlds 2018 – 2.05 million viewers at peak.
Where do the numbers behind the statistics come from? The website Esports Charts specializes in analyses regarding eSports. They evaluate data from more than 150,000 livestreams from various platforms.
The data is gathered from 16 different languages. China is excluded, although eSports has a large viewership there. According to their statements, the data in China is too difficult to evaluate to make concrete statements.
Live viewers also high thanks to the timing
Why are the viewer numbers at the Worlds 2019 so high? The Worlds 2019, especially the duel between SKT1 and G2 Esports, benefited from several aspects:
- Both teams are very popular in their region and known for superstars like Faker or Caps.
- Both teams were favorites at the Worlds from the beginning. Many saw the semi-final as a pre-final.
- The time zones during the Worlds 2019 were ideal for both regions. The matches started at 12:00 in Spain, which corresponds to 19:00 in Korea. This allowed both regions to watch their favorite teams at convenient times.
Now that a Chinese team awaits G2 Esports in the final, it is quite possible that the final next Sunday will not reach the peak values of this duel.
That would still be a small record, as the World Finals have always been the highest viewership games so far.
