2023 was a significant year for the esports industry. League of Legends set a new overall peak viewership record for esports, mobile gaming continues to grow and dominate the Southeast Asian market, and new games and tournaments are constantly coming out.
In the midst of all this, the teams competing in the events are the heart and soul of the esports industry. Fans love to flock to their favourite roster of players and the teams are what make esports broadcasts so tantalising to watch.
For this 2023 Esports Results article, we want to celebrate the teams that made 2023 a great year for esports. Rather than looking at which teams achieved the singular highest peak viewership, we collated our data for the entire year and assembled a ranking of the most watched esports teams of the year.
That means, teams, not esports organisations. Some esports organisations compete with teams in multiple esports disciplines or even multiple teams in one discipline; for this ranking, the watch time of each team was collected. The Hours Watched metric for the teams is calculated including viewership from internet live streaming platforms, excluding Chinese ones, which do not have reliable data available for access.
#3 – Blacklist International (Mobile Legends: Bang Bang)
The first of the podium placements in our rankings is Blacklist International, a Mobile Legends: Bang Bang team representing the Philippines. The roster garnered
74.61M Hours Watched during their 67 matches played throughout the year, which is equal to roughly half of the entire viewership for mobile games on Twitch in 2023.
Mobile gaming is a huge portion of the esports market, and Blacklist International represents one of the largest markets of this sector. The Philippines, along with countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, is a cornerstone of the mobile gaming esports market, and fans avidly supported Blacklist International throughout the year.
The Filipino ML:BB team garnered 4.27M Peak Viewers during their match against RRQ Hoshi at the M4 World Championship, which was notably not even the Grand Final match of the event and yet was the highest viewership the tournament saw during its run.
#2 – ONIC Esports (Mobile Legends: Bang Bang)
To contextualise the viewership received by ONIC Esports. Their 2023 viewership is comparable to the total watch time accumulated by Twitch between last Friday to Sunday. A different contextualisation of the Indonesian rosters’ massive popularity: their match against AP.Bren at the M5 World Championship was the fourth-ever esports event to break the 5M concurrent viewers barrier.
ONIC Esports’ total watch time throughout 2023 is almost incomprehensible in its vastness, and yet, there was another team that garnered even more.
#1 – T1 (League of Legends)
Not entirely surprisingly, T1 was the most watched esports team of the entire year. The Korean team is undoubtedly the most popular esports team in the industry, and they regularly push esports viewership to the limit at the League of Legends World Championship. In 2023, they garnered 129.25M Hours Watched, almost 8 million more than the next-best team.
Speaking of the tournament, T1 helped set a new esports viewership record when their match against Weibo Gaming at Worlds 2023 reached 6.4M Peak Viewers. The viewership for this match was likely even much higher, as a Chinese roster competed against the Koreans but we sadly cannot account for viewership from Chinese live streaming platforms due to the unreliability of reported statistics.
Although many may have guessed T1 would be the most watched esports team of 2023, ONIC Esports was not far behind. Only 8M HW separated the two teams, and as mobile gaming esports continues to grow and develop itself this gap will likely continue to close. In the upcoming years, we may see a swing in the rankings as mobile gaming becomes the most popular genre of esports.
The remainder of the top 10 most watched teams featured many other ML:BB teams. Interestingly, between mobile gaming and traditional PC esports all of the top 10 most watched teams were involved with MOBA esports.
Rex Regum Qeon, otherwise known as RRQ, fell short of the podium places, but not by much. The Indonesian ML:BB team garnered
74.53M Hours Watched, just slightly fewer than their compatriot team Blacklist International. EVOS Legends and Geek Fam ID garnered 61.51M HW and
57.35M HW, respectively, adding two more Indonesian ML:BB teams to this ranking.
The homogeneity of the kinds of teams on this ranking is proof enough that esports teams benefit heavily from domestic support.
Patriotism and supporting teams from your homeland are essential parts of traditional sports, and esports is no different in this regard. Indonesia is one of the biggest markets for mobile gaming esports in the world, and it is no coincidence that Indonesian mobile gaming esports teams are prevalent in this ranking. Most teams on this ranking did benefit heavily from their home country’s support.
Gen.G was the fifth most watched esports team of 2023 having accumulated 64.97M Hours Watched and became the second League of Legends team to populate this list. The Korean roster are well-known rival of T1. But they remain unable to get a step above T1 when it comes to viewership and fan support. The Korean esports market for League of Legends nevertheless helped this roster rank as one of the most popular teams of the year.
Gaimin Gladiators and Team Spirit are the representatives for the third MOBA title of this list, Dota 2. Gaimin Gladiators have had a beyond successful 2023. The organisation entered Dota 2 in 2022 and they have since become a fan-favourite for many in the esports discipline. The European roster was able to become the most-watched Dota 2 esports team of the entire year with 64.88M Hours Watched, although they were unable to achieve success at The International 2023, having been eliminated by Team Spirit.
Both of these teams from Dota 2 feature international rosters, and their viewership is more representative of the international Central and Eastern European audience, rather than of a singular country.
Team Spirit are a much more established team in Dota 2. Their match against Gaimin Gladiators at The International 2023 became the most popular Dota 2 match of the year, with 1.44M Peak Viewers recorded. Although Team Spirit has recorded a higher PV record than Gaimin Gladiators, they were unable to best them in terms of watch time this year. TS recorded 53.91M Hours Watched in 2023, just about edging out ECHO for the ninth spot of this ranking.
Counter-Strike and Valorant were two of the most popular esports disciplines of the year, and many teams in these disciplines have huge followings. However, compared to other disciplines of this list, these two shooters hosted shorter events and tournaments more selectively. This left the watch time potential of the disciplines untapped, as teams did not have enough opportunities to generate the sufficient watch time to rank on this list, as they could have.
