League of Legends Worlds 2019: semifinal viewership SHATTERS records

The semifinal series between G2 and SKT at Worlds 2019 wasn’t just the most-watched League of Legends match ever, it was the most-watched esports event. And that’s a big deal.

The “League of Legends is a dying game” crowd just took another blow to their argument. Sunday’s four-game series between SKT and G2 peaked at 4 million concurrent viewers eclipsing the previous record held by the Fortnite World Cup from earlier this year (2.3 million) and making the semifinal round of Worlds 2019 the most-watched esports event ever. Oh and that’s not counting Chinese viewership.

That last point is actually huge because, although Fortnite has been presumed to be the king of gaming in the West, League of Legends has unquestionably been the king of Chinese viewership. With reports from last year’s Worlds that China had 200 million concurrent viewers for the finals, this undoubtedly sets Worlds 2019 to be the most-watched esports tournament ever, considering next week’s finals will include a Chinese team for the second year in a row.

Still, even without the Chinese viewership juggernaut, these recent viewership numbers from Western audiences show that League of Legends continues to be a massive force even 10 years into its lifecycle. This enormous spike in viewership also comes the same week as the news that the EUW server has eclipsed 3 million players. The fact that this new record was broken as one of the most popular teams from EU was taking down SKT and the greatest player of all-time, Faker, that says a lot about the strength of the game.

Riot has long pushed for League of Legends to be a sport that lasts for decades, perhaps even generations, with new players growing up playing the game just as we grew up playing and watching basketball, soccer, or hockey. The fact that the League of Legends audience and player base continues to grow and lift esports to new heights shows that Riot might just be right.