Almost 100 Million Unique Viewers Tune In For League Of Legends Finals
A total of 99.6 million unique viewers tuned in to the biggest annual League of Legends event. The World Championship thus broke its viewership records as the tournament was broadcast in nineteen languages and on more than thirty platforms and channels.
The Finals, held in Incheon, South Korea, had peak viewership at 44 million concurrent viewers. The average minute audience — describing the average number of viewers during any given minute of the program — was 19.6 million.
The 99.6 million unique viewers was up from 80 million in 2017.
Compare the aforesaid numbers to what Super Bowl LII delivered in 2018, which was an average TV audience of roughly 103.4 million. Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers drew 13.6 million viewers.
“For the past eight years, we’ve been working hard to build League of Legends into the next premier global sport,” said Whalen Rozelle, Co-Head of Esports at Riot Games. “The
international interest we see in our sport is a direct result of our investment in developing a deep competitive ecosystem at both regional and global levels. We are tracking toward our
aspirational goal of making League of Legends the first multi-generational, sustainable esport.”
Next year’s League of Legends season will begin in January, with the 2019 World Championship being held in Europe with a Final in Paris. The broadcast numbers should increase further with Vietnam and Brazil set to level up distribution and content channels.
