MSI 2023 viewership numbers

Mid-Season Invitational 2023 is over and JD Gaming are the winners. The Chinese team proved to be much stronger than Bilibili Gaming, despite the fact that Bilibili defeated both Gen.G Esports and T1 on their path to the Grand Final.

The viewership numbers of MSI 2023 were much better than those of MSI 2022. It’s clear that Riot Games has taken effective measures to boost its audience numbers for its biggest esports events. Another thing that might have helped is the fact that almost all of the exciting LoL teams from around the world managed to qualify for the tournament.

MSI 2023 key viewership numbers

MSI 2023 took place in the UK. According to Escharts, it had 2.3 million viewers at its peak and nearly 800.000 viewers on average. It was watched for a total of 61.4 million hours. These numbers are excellent compared to what we’re used to.

League of Legends, despite having a massive community of more than 100 million fans, is known for its rather underperforming esports side. The production is amazing, but only a small percentage of the player base tunes in to watch the action.

Even when legendary teams like T1 compete, less than 2% of those who play LoL have the patience to watch them compete.

To put the numbers into perspective, the 2022 edition of MSI had only 588.000 average concurrent viewers and was watched for a total of 48 million hours.

What would make LoL even more interesting to watch

We know that many people watch LoL streamers regularly. People like Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp are extremely famous and can generate a huge number of average concurrent viewers. But the reason why people tune in to watch them play has something to do with their personality.

To make the game itself more exciting, it would have to be more unpredictable. Right now, the formula stays the same in every single game. And the audience gets to see far less action than it could see. To generate more drama, LoL would need to allow different lane dynamics.

Or, at the very least, it should make more champions viable. Right now, the meta is quite static and a lot of teams are picking the same champions over and over. The number of options is huge, but not that many of them are good.

Header: Riot Games