The 2023 introduction of co-casting to the League of Legends World Championship series has significantly reshaped the way global fans engage with the tournament. Fans from diverse regions have fueled Worlds 2024’s impressive viewership growth, highlighting how co-casting has enabled Riot Games to extend its reach in critical, emerging markets while strengthening its established audience base.
An analysis conducted before the Worlds 2024 final explored viewership trends over the years, focusing on how co-casting has influenced them since its official adoption in 2023. Now, with the conclusion of Worlds 2024, we can also examine the top co-casters who made a substantial impact on viewership.
Read more: How League of Legends Worlds viewership has evolved: co-casting explosion and official broadcasts stepping back
Worlds 2024 set a new esports record with 6.94 million concurrent viewers in the final match. While last year’s record of 6.4 million viewers was largely due to Korean fans cheering for T1 and Faker, this year’s audience growth was spread across multiple key demographics. Though official broadcast viewership decreased in some regions due to co-casting, overall viewership for Worlds 2024 still grew.
How co-casting has impacted the official English RiotGames Twitch broadcast
Since co-casting was introduced in 2023, viewership for the official English RiotGames Twitch stream has faced significant challenges, as audiences increasingly turn to co-casters. This trend has caused viewership declines for official channels, despite the event’s record-setting peak. YouTube’s official broadcasts fared better than Twitch but still saw reduced numbers due to co-casting’s popularity.
In 2024, while official channels have stabilized, their viewership remains below pre-2023 levels, and the RiotGames Twitch channel hit its lowest peak viewership (PV) since 2018, highlighting co-casting’s impact.
This year also marked record viewership for many top co-casters. Channels achieved personal bests, with millions of hours watched across the board, surpassing their 2023 records.
Worlds 2024’s watch time growth driven primarily by co-casters
Year-on-year data shows that Worlds 2024 reached its highest watch time largely due to co-casters, who contributed most of the viewership increase. While official broadcasts remained flat, strong co-casting viewership from traditional (English, Spanish, Korean) and growing (Vietnamese, Chinese-speaking, Portuguese) audiences drove significant engagement.
Vietnamese and Portuguese viewership saw especially notable increases, with Vietnamese co-casting reaching 79% of Korea’s watch time and contributing significantly to total viewership.
Top co-casters of Worlds 2024
Caedrel emerged as the most-watched co-caster, with 17.02 million hours watched and a peak of 372,000 viewers, a new channel record. He outpaced ibai, who was the most-watched Spanish co-caster, with 11.59 million hours watched. Ibai attracted 80% of the Spanish viewership and recorded high peak viewership, though Caedrel maintained a higher average viewership throughout Worlds 2024.
Brazilian co-caster Baiano also saw success, reaching 7.33 million hours watched across Twitch and YouTube, establishing himself as the top Portuguese-language broadcaster of the event.
Vietnamese broadcaster Hoàng Luân led Vietnamese viewership with nearly 2 million more hours watched than last year. He was joined by popular Vietnamese co-casters like Thầy Giáo Ba and Văn Tùng, the latter setting a new peak viewership record during the finals.
Worlds 2024’s 30% watch time increase driven by co-casting
Overall, co-casters contributed to a 30% increase in watch time for Worlds 2024. Vietnamese and Brazilian viewers helped set new records, with Vietnamese broadcasts peaking at 1.1 million viewers. English-speaking international audiences also grew, with co-casting now accounting for 40% of total watch time in this category.
Without co-casting, Worlds 2024 would have missed out on 87.5 million hours watched, underscoring the significant impact co-casting has had on the League of Legends esports scene and the broader esports industry. As a relatively new innovation, co-casting will likely continue to shape the future of esports broadcasting.
