Esports World Cup breaks 1m viewers in League of Legends, trails in Warzone

The first two tournaments at the Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia have concluded in the event’s first week, with League of Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone winners decided over the weekend.

The League of Legends tournament reached over a million peak viewers, while the Warzone tournament managed just over 135,000 peak viewers, according to esports data platform Esports Charts.

The League of Legends tournament featured a total of eight teams, including the likes of T1 and Bilibili Gaming, Gen.G, and Team Liquid. The tournament eventually had 1.11m peak viewers, making it the third most-watched League of Legends event of 2024.

Around 565,000 viewers followed the tournament on average, across just 22 hours of air time, partly attributed to the fact that the tournament featured major international teams.

The League of Legends tournament was won by KOrea’s T1, having beaten China’s Top Esports in the grand finals. T1 was also the most-watched team of the series, generating around 8.8m hours watched.

Meanwhile, the Warzone tournament came in much lower with a total of 135,000 viewers. This made it the second most-watched Warzone event of the year, with 19.5 hours of air time and 76,180 viewers on average, though far below previous years and outside the event’s top 50 tournaments by peak viewership. The Warzone event was won by home team Team Falcons after the team had the best overall performance in the eight matches played during the Warzone event.

The two tournaments were both very short in duration, having started and finished in the first week of the event. In addition to League of Legends and Warzone, tournaments in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Dota 2 also started in the first week of the EWC.

The event will take place throughout July and August. It is run by the Esports World Cup Foundation, funded by the Saudi Arabian government, which has drawn criticism due to the country’s human rights record.