Tyler1: League of Legends on Twitch ‘dead’ as Worlds 2022 viewership drops
A popular League of Legends Twitch streamer Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp has claimed that League of Legends is “dead” on Twitch, with streamers’ viewership plummeting due to the North American League time slot being difficult to watch for fans in Europe and Korea.
Streaming on October 24, Tyler1 discussed how famous League streamers such as ChaseShaco, Boyuan “bobqin” Qin and Tarzane had low viewership and how time constraints for Worlds 2022 might have significantly lowered their usual viewing figures.
“Did Worlds in NA kill NA streaming as well? Nobody gets any viewers now.” Tyler said, “I was watching Bobqin like, ‘What the f*cks going on?’ I think it killed NA streaming because it’s a terrible timeslot.”
Steinkamp, who is well-known for his harsh criticisms of LoL and its developers, went on to ask the important question, “Is League Twitch dead?”
The statistics seem to back his argument that Worlds 2022 has implications for streamer numbers in North America. According to TwitchTracker, Tarzaned’s viewership dropped from 3,959 regular viewers in September 2022 to 1,822 average viewers in October 2022.
League of Legends’ “dying” viewership has been a running debate in the community and it was not the first time Tyler commented on the subject. He previously expressed his thoughts on one of former TSM pro League player Doublelift’s streams, saying, “Apparently Doublelift said League is dying, so Riot isn’t letting him co-stream.”
“I feel bad for the casters, currently, that shit’s so fucking dead,” Tyler said. “You don’t know any of the players anyway and NA LCS sucks as well. And not only does NA LCS suck, but the game’s boring as f**k right now as well.”
Worlds 2022′ shrinking viewership
League’s average Twitch viewership has been shrinking since January. In the first month of 2022, League had 248,000 concurrent viewers. In September, the viewership average was 159,000. In October, it recovered to 220,000 viewers, but this was while Worlds 2022 was in full swing.
According to Esports Charts, the viewership of LoL Worlds Play-ins this year has decreased compared to 2021. Its viewership was only 1.1 million, a 16 percent decrease from 2021. From the previous year, the average number of viewers tumbled by 747,000. However, broadcast delays on the first day of the Play-ins increased the number of hours viewed by 8 percent to 38.1 million.
These statistics do not show a decline in Worlds popularity. Rather, they show the tournament’s reliance on European and Asian markets. Due to the location of the play-ins being in Mexico, matches began around 10 p.m. European time and ended at least 4 a.m. Meanwhile, they started around 3 a.m. in South Korea.
The low viewership trend continued in the 2022 World Championship’s final group stage matches, which concluded on October 16. With South Korean and Chinese teams dominating European and North American teams, the audience reached was only 40 percent of what it was at the previous year’s World Championship.
The average viewership for the 2022 World Championship Group Stage was 826,000, with a peak audience of 1.39 million during the match between T1 and Fnatic on Group Stage Day 2. When compared to the Group Stage of last year’s World Championship, all major metrics dropped significantly, by 37-41 percent.
The stage’s most popular Twitch channel is the official Riot Games channel, with 15.6 million hours watched, followed by LoL Esports’ YouTube channel. Last year, LCK Korea ranked second in hours watched, but it is now only ranked seventh.
