Mentioned in this article
Leagues:
ESL Pro League Season 11
With most major esports leagues either postponed or moved online, the ESL Pro League lead the week in viewership.
Jaryd “Summit1g” Lazar continues his streak as the top individual streamer for a fourth consecutive week.
Former top streamer contender Turner “Tfue” Tenney returns to the Top 10.
The following content is ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch from Monday to the following Sunday.
Professional Stay at Home Gamer
The mass quarantines and event cancellations brought on by the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) put esports tournament organizers and league operators into a scramble to get their events back up and running online as quickly as possible. Last weekend saw the return of Europe and North America’s professional League of Legends leagues, as well as the continuation of the online-only version of the ESL Pro League.
Season 11 of the Counter-Strike competition led all channels this week, generating nearly 4M hours watched. Since the departure of the Overwatch League from the platform, and the separation of Riot Games’ various leagues into their own channels, it has been rare to see weekly league play top the Twitch charts, with the spot typically reserved for finals events and popular streamers during big content releases.
Summit1g’s Streak Continues
Lazar has been the number one individual streamer for four consecutive weeks, two of which saw him take the top spot overall. The former Counter-Strike pro has been the chief beneficiary of Call of Duty: Warzone’s popularity on Twitch. Out of the long line of new battle royale titles, only Fortnite has shown the resiliency to keep streamers at the top more than a month or two after release, but Lazar has been a Top 10 fixture for months without needing to rely on a single game to boost his numbers.
Lazar will likely see his numbers start to decline from the 2.38M hours watched he generated this week (whenever the release hype for Warzone inevitably dies down), but he will be positioned better than other top streamers of the title to ride this momentum into whatever the next big title might be.
The Prodigal Tfue Returns
Amidst various controversies and contract disputes, Tenney had taken a break from streaming beginning in late 2019. While he has been live most days during 2020 thus far, that drop in momentum combined with some reduced airtime kept Tenney away from the Top 10.
In 2019, Tenney led all individual streamers by a wide margin, generating over 20M more hours watched than the second place streamer (88.11M to Lazar’s 63.16M). A slow start to 2020 makes a similar result somewhat difficult, but his return to the Top 10 is noteworthy, particularly with his highly public FaZe Clan lawsuit still lingering to generate headlines and publicity for his channel.
