Riot Games 
is no stranger to having its Twitch channel leading the platform in terms of viewership. So far this year, “Riotgames” has produced a total of 38.5M hours watched, more than any other esports channel or influencer.
Of those 38.5M hours watched, the developer’s top League of Legends competitions, the LoL Championship Series
(LCS) and LoL European Championship (LEC) accounted for 18.9M hours watched and 15.78M hours watched, respectively, for live game coverage of their Spring Splits.
The performance by each league signaled strong year-over-year viewership growth as the LCS was up more than 4M from 14.1M hours watched last year. LEC viewership more than doubled on Riot Games’ Twitch channel from the 2018 Spring Split that had 7.6M hours watched.
Total hours watched figures for the two LoL splits were matched with strong average viewership statistics as well. The LCS posted an average of 138K concurrent viewers during live weekend matches, and the LEC had an average CCV of 90.9K on Riot Games’ channel.
” alt=””/>
Growth by the LCS and LEC was consistent throughout the playoffs as well, despite the LEC having a less competitive bracket that saw G2 Esports sweep its way to the title. The LCS posted 5.24M hours watched during live playoff coverage, up from 4M for the 2018 Spring Split.
The LEC recorded 3.6M hours watched while exhibiting its new “juggernaut” playoff format, up from 2.1M last season when the league used a more traditional single-elimination bracket with six teams. This year’s format included a match between the league’s top two seeds for an automatic bid in the finals. The loser of that match was required to play a quasi-semifinal match against the last team standing among the four other teams that made the playoffs.
” alt=””/>
Figures on Riot Games’ main channel don’t reflect the entirety of LEC coverage on Twitch. There are numerous alternative-language broadcast partners for the league that include O’Gaming TV (French), LVP (Spanish), Polsat Games by Frenzy (Polish), Summornser Inn Live by Freaks4U Gaming (German), and PG Esports (Italian). Though these alternatives provide a plethora of options for European viewers, in order to find consistency in year-over-year statistics, growth is measured most effectively using the main Riot Games broadcast.
Overall Riot Games’ 38.5M hours watched, which includes re-runs and peripheral LoL coverage, was up from 31.3M hours watched during the LCS and LEC Spring Splits in 2018. However, the channel managed to post a nearly identical CCV of around 57K each year.
Growth by the LEC comes following a rebranding of the league that was formerly known as the European LoL Championship Series. After the North American LCS finished its first successful season using a new franchise-based model for its teams, Riot Games decided to also transition the European league to a franchise model and rebrand it to the LEC.
