The LEC Winter Split Viewership was the highest so far, trumping the previous years in terms of average minute audience.
The first LEC split of 2024 ended on February 25th with G2 Esports trumping the competition for the 3rd time in a row! While the biggest League of Legends tournament was one of the best in terms of excitement, it was literally the best in another thing: viewership.
LEC Winter Split Viewership Broke All-Time Average Minute Audience Record
Shared on X/Twitter by the official LEC account, the 2024 Winter LEC split was the most watched yet. The Average Minute Audience (so the average of people watching) was 338,000 for the entirety of the split. The Grand Finals of the Split, MAD Lions KOI vs G2 Esports almost doubled this number with a 519,000 AMA.
The highest AMA for an #LEC Split ever 📈
Thank you all for making Winter 2024 a record-breaking Split! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/ZPKf740NGu
— LEC (@LEC) February 27, 2024
This is more than a 30% increase compared to last year, thanks to multiple factors. First, the introduction of co-streaming has been boosting the popularity and viewership of the LEC. Streamers like Caedrel or Ibai has been averaging tens of thousands of people watching their streams. However, the official broadcast is doing great as well, with the LEC reaching 120,000 max viewers during the Winter Finals. It also had almost 200 million hours watched among all the broadcasts, which is an astronomical number.
Maximilian Peter Schmidt, Director of League of Legends Esports, EMEA said: “The successful viewership metrics we’ve seen in the LEC this Winter Split have been years in the making. The introduction of our new format last year, the ongoing enhancement of our co-streaming offering, the emergence of new teams, as well as the growth and strengthening of others, have all played a role. In addition, the LoL Esports ecosystem in EMEA, which offers a combination of amateur circuits and European Regional Leagues (ERLs), have been integral to achieving these heights. This ecosystem fosters the development of local players, teams and tournaments and cultivates communities of LoL Esports fans. When it comes to viewership specifically, there is no doubt this has been the best LEC Split in our history.”
Even though esports have been struggling for a while now as different games have been losing viewers and players and some of the biggest names falling apart, the community is still strong. Other leagues are doing great as well: the LCK averages 26,000 viewers with a current peak of 62,000. Even the LPL is almost at 10,000, but most of the traffic happens off Twitch for the Chinese league.
The Winter Split is also only the first one of the year, and last year the EMEA League saw a rise in popularity as we got closer to the Season Finals. Riot made the right decision with co-streaming and the new Riot Arena – the question is how many times can the LEC break it’s own record?
