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League/Tournament Brands:
With a mix of weekly leagues and international championships, Riot Games’ main Twitch channel was the most-viewed channel of the year.
Turner “Tfue” Tenney took over as the most-watched influencer on the platform, continuing Fortnite’s dominance in the category.
Despite their departure from the platform, both Michael “shroud” Grzesiek and Tyler “Ninja” Blevins managed to stay in the top 10 due to their strong performance in the first half of the year.
The following content is ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch from Monday to the following Sunday, with data compiled using TEO Access.
Esports Back on Top
2018 was dominated by the rise of Fortnite and Blevins’ overwhelming success. But with the influencer-driven title on the decline, esports leagues took over the top two spots. Riot Games’ main channel broadcast all matches of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) and League of Legends European Championship (LEC), as well as all three major international competitions for the game – All-Stars, the Mid-Season Invitational, and the World Championship. Altogether, this allowed the channel to generate over 112M hours watched.
In its second year, the Overwatch League’s main channel claimed the #2 spot, generating 89.38M hours watched over the course of the season. Direct comparison between the two channels is somewhat difficult given that the OWL has fewer total broadcast days than Riot Games. However, in a direct comparison of their championship matches, using average-minute-audience, Riot’s World Championship overshadowed the OWL Grand Finals – 21.8M to 1.12M.
Both channels grew over 2018 by more than 10M hours watched.
The New Face of Twitch
Blevin’s departure from the platform came after the streamer had already begun to see a decline in Twitch viewership. In his place, Tenney rose to become the most consistent top streamer, though his success pales in comparison to Blevins’ 2018 figures.
Tenney’s 88.05M hours watched in 2019 puts him in third place, while Blevin’s overwhelmed the competition last year, generating 221.91M. That being said, Tenney’s success in 2018 should not be discounted. The streamer grew his Twitch channel by roughly 50% by hours watched over 2018 and has been able to retain his viewership through several hiatuses late in the year, setting him up to continue a strong showing into 2020.
So Hard to Say Goodbye
The two most-watched streamers of 2018 left the platform for Microsoft’s Mixer earlier this year, but both still managed to place within the top 10 due to their success early in the year. Blevins was still riding his 2018 success at the start of 2019, but Grzesiek leveraged the launch of a new title to remarkable success, boosting his numbers for the year.
The launch of Apex Legends made Grzesiek the most-watched streamer on the platform during its initial launch hype, which helped him generate 60.27M hours watched in 2019.
The fact that both streamers remained in the top 10 highlights just how big the following for each had become when they left for a smaller platform.
