Most popular esports tournaments in January 2024
In January 2024, the regional leagues of League of Legends attracted the largest audience in esports, especially successful in gathering viewers was LCK which set a record for peak online viewership in group stages among all franchise leagues in the discipline. The top 5 popular tournaments also included Counter-Strike events, specifically BLAST Premier and Intel Extreme Masters championships.
The most popular tournaments of January 2024
The most popular tournament of January was the Korean LoL league LCK Spring 2024. On January 17th, the peak online viewership during the match between T1 and Gen.G reached almost 1.2M Peak Viewers; this marked the best result ever for the group stages among all regional leagues and another victory for Gen.G in a pivotal derby.
In the second position was the LEC Winter 2024, the European league for the same game by Riot Games. The match between Karmine Corp. and Mad Lions KOI recorded a peak online viewership of 741.4K PV, greatly influenced by the co-owners and co-casters of the two teams, streamers Kamet0 and Ibai.
The third position in the top rankings, with a 354K PV, was secured by the RULE THE RIFT event. This was a small LoL tournament featuring stars from LCK; RULE THE RIFT marked the opening of the competitive season in South Korea. The tournament involved mixes of various teams competing for formal prizes, such as in-game skins and MVP awards.
The remaining two spots in the top 5 were taken by Counter-Strike 2 tournaments, each attracting approximately equal audiences. BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024 achieved a result of 328.7K PV during the match between Natus Vincere and G2 Esports. Meanwhile, at IEM Katowice 2024, almost 321K PV tuned in to watch several matches that were played simultaneously.
Top esports events among English viewers — January 2024
The match between T1 and Gen.G in LCK Spring 2024 also emerged as a leader among English-speaking viewers, with nearly 270K PV watching the Korean derby on English-language broadcasts.
The second most popular tournament among English-speaking viewers was the Call of Duty League 2024: Stage 1 Major, specifically the derby between Atlanta FaZe and OpTic Texas. The showdown, in which Atlanta FaZe secured a hard-fought victory with a score of 3:2, gathered over 245.2K PV.
The FC Pro 24 Open attracted 239K PV at the peak of English-language broadcasts. Such an audience was drawn in thanks to the distribution of in-game experience and player cards — these gifts are awarded by EA Sports to viewers for watching tournament matches.
The peak online viewership for LEC Winter 2024 on English-language broadcasts reached 237.1K viewers simultaneously. This result was recorded during the match between G2 Esports and Karmine Corp, which took place on January 14th.
BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024 was the only Counter-Strike 2 tournament to make it into the top 5. The match between the Danish team Astralis and the German club BIG gathered the largest English-speaking audience; the Danes secured a victory with a score of 2:1 and advanced to the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024.