In 2023, esports enthusiasts closely followed competitions in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Counter-Strike, and League of Legends, and many more. These three disciplines amassed the highest hours of viewership on streams. Esports Charts has compiled a list of the most popular esports channels in live-streaming that covered tournament matches.
This material exclusively showcases official channels from studios and tournament organizers. Ratings for community casters will be published separately in another article. Additionally, we did not consider statistics from Chinese streaming services, as they employ a different methodology to assess the popularity of broadcasts, making a comparison with data from other platforms impossible.
Top 10 of the Most Popular Esports Channels in 2023
In 2023, the most popular esports channel was the official channel of the MPL Indonesia regional league on YouTube. Over the year, it garnered more than 105.1M Hours Watched during broadcasts of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang tournament matches. Compared to the previous year, the channel’s watch time saw a 39% increase. It’s worth noting that the 11th and 12th seasons of MPL Indonesia were previously among the top 10 most popular esports events based on peak online viewership.
The official channel of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang on YouTube secured the second position with 61.1M Hours Watched. In 2023, this channel broadcasted major international tournaments like the M5 World Championship, as well as key matches from regional leagues MPL and MDL. It’s important to mention that YouTube allows simultaneous multiple streams on one channel. For instance, this is often seen during tournaments for ML:BB and PUBG Mobile when they are broadcasted in different languages on the same channel.
Taking the third spot in the rankings with 50.4M Hours Watched was the ESLCS channel on Twitch, which streamed tournament matches of Counter-Strike. In 2023, this channel hosted official English broadcasts for ESL Pro League, ESL Challenger, IEM Sydney, IEM Rio, and other tournaments. ESLCS streams run daily, and even when there are no official competitions they showcase replays of the most exciting matches from previous years.
The Liên Quân Mobile eSports-Garena channel on YouTube specializes in covering Arena of Valor tournaments for Vietnamese audiences. In 2023, this channel generated 47.7M Hours Watched. One of the recent tournaments covered there was the Arena of Valor International Championship 2023.
The French Twitch channel otplol_ covers League of Legends content and secured the fifth spot in these rankings. In 2023, it amassed over 45.8M Hours Watched, providing nearly round-the-clock coverage of tournament matches of Riot Games’ MOBA. They showcased matches from regional leagues like LCK, LEC, and LFL, along with games from the 2023 World Championship.
The sixth position in the rankings is held by the official LCK channel on YouTube. Throughout the year, it broadcasted matches from the Korean regional League of Legends league, accumulating 44.1M Hours Watched. In addition to the domestic league, the LCK channel also featured games of Korean teams in international tournaments (such as Worlds 2023), various ceremonies, and events like the 2023 LCK Awards.
It’s worth noting that from 2020 to 2022, the LCK channel on YouTube scarcely hosted live broadcasts. However, in 2023, it showcased the highest peak online viewership among all other esports channels in the top, reaching 1.44M Peak Viewers.
The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Indonesia channel on YouTube covered matches from the Indonesian regional league of ML:BB and major tournaments within the discipline throughout the year. In 2023, it accumulated 40.3M Hours Watched, setting a channel record in January for peak viewership with 460,000 viewers during the M4 World Championship.
The MLBB eSports channel on YouTube secured the eighth position in the rankings with 34.9M Hours Watched. Primarily, this channel featured multilingual broadcasts of international championships in Mobile Legends.
The official BLASTPremier channel on Twitch occupies the ninth position on the ranking with 34.3M Hours Watched. Throughout the year, it primarily streamed matches from the partner league BLAST in Counter-Strike, including the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. During the major event, the channel set a record for peak online viewership, with over 440,000 viewers concurrently watching the grand final between Team Vitality and GamerLegion.
The tenth position was held by the official Riot Games channel on Twitch, which generated 30.5M Hours Watched throughout the year, predominantly featuring League of Legends content. This channel mainly showcased matches from the 2023 World Championship, along with select games from the LCS playoffs and other regional leagues (each having its own separate official channel).
Most Popular Esports Channels on Twitch in 2023
If we consider the Twitch platform separately from YouTube, only channels covering Counter-Strike and League of Legends made it to the top five of the most popular esports channels. The most popular esports channel for Dota 2 was the Russian-language studio Paragon, which generated 26.2M Hours Watched in 2023, covering majors and other tournaments within the discipline. Slightly fewer hours of watch time was accumulated by the channel ESL_DOTA2, where Dota 2 tournaments were covered in English.
Occupying the eighth position was the channel of the Korean league LCK for League of Legends, which generated 21.4M Hours Watched throughout the year. Interestingly, LCK broadcasts on YouTube garnered 39.2M Hours Watched, nearly twice as much. This unequivocally establishes YouTube as the primary platform for coverage of the Korean professional League of Legends scene. This is a crucial indicator, especially considering that Twitch will cease operations in South Korea in 2024.
The remaining top 10 most popular esports channels on Twitch are Valorant-dedicated channels. The official English-language channel of the game accumulated 21.3M Hours Watched. Following closely behind was the channel with broadcasts in Japanese, indicating the discipline’s high popularity in the country.
Most Popular Esports Channels on YouTube in 2023
Most positions in the list of the most popular esports channels on YouTube were taken by channels covering tournaments in mobile esports. Among the most popular disciplines were Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Arena of Valor, and PUBG Mobile. Interestingly, within the top 10 there were three channels in Indonesian, two in Vietnamese, and one each in Tagalog (Philippines) and Thai. This suggests that YouTube streams are particularly popular in Southeast Asia, whereas Twitch’s primary audience resides in Europe and North America. However, due to a series of restrictions, esports channels from India didn’t make it into the top. Still, there might be a comeback for them in 2024.
