Credit: Valve Corporation
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Qualifiers for Dota 2’s The International next month rev up viewership for Dota 2 esports channels.
Meanwhile, Turner “Tfue” Tenney continues to assert his dominance as a consistent source of strong viewership among personality broadcasters.
The following channels are ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch from Monday to the following Sunday, with data compiled using TEO Access.
Going International
The International for Dota 2 doesn’t have its main event until August, but this past week’s regional qualifiers were a boon for viewership on several esports channels. Dota2mc_ru led all channels this week with 4.7M hours watched due in part to 144 hours of airtime that included re-runs from recent Majors.
However, other channels like BeyondtheSummit and the Russian-language hub for Dota 2 also made it into the top 10 for coverage of Valve’s multiplayer online battle arena game. Strong viewership by Russian-language channels in particular follows a well-established trend of Dota 2 popularity among Russian-language viewers.
Turner the Tables
Turner “Tfue” Tenney became the first influencer to hit more than 2M hours watched in the past three weeks, when he was also the only personality able to eclipse the figure. Not only that, but he also nearly reached 3M hours watched as well posted the strongest viewership by any influencer since the middle of May when he reached 4M hours watched, and Chance “Sodapoppin” Morris recorded 3M.
Tenney’s 60 hours of airtime certainly supported his cause this past week, but an average of 50K concurrent viewers gave him the best average of any channel to produce more than 20 hours of airtime this week as well. Despite a falling out with his former team organization FaZe Clan, Tenney’s popularity has continued to keep him as one of the top influencers playing Fortnite and on Twitch generally.
Riot Control
The Summer Split for Riot Games’ League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) and LoL European Championship (LEC)has seen a dip in viewership from its Spring counterpart, and this week is no exception.
After seeing consistent growth in terms of Twitch viewership in the spring, both leagues have combined for fewer hours watched and lower average viewership on Riot Games’ channel that produces primary English-language coverage for each.
Additionally, while the first seven weeks of Summer Split action this year have generated 14.1M hours watched on Riot’s channel overall, up from 12.9M in 2018, the average viewership for all coverage, including re-runs and peripheral coverage, has seen a slight dip from 44K CCV to 41K CCV.