Despite the continued rise of VALORANT and the post-release energy surrounding Counter-Strike 2, the most watched esport in the world is still League of Legends, and it’s not really that close. The MOBA that serves as Riot Games’ foundation nearly doubled the amount of total hours watched from the second most watched title of 2024.
According to data from Esports Charts, fans watched 749.6 million hours of League of Legends esports events in 2024, up 27% from the year before. The 2024 World Championships, known commonly as Worlds 2024, unsurprisingly was the biggest event of the year. Worlds 2024 accumulated over 190 million hours watched, accounting for over a quarter of League esports hours watched all year. The event peaked during its grand finals, with a record 6,856,769 viewers tuning in to watch T1 and the legendary Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok win their fifth Worlds event.
Trailing behind League of Legends is the mobile-based MOBA, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which is wildly popular in Southeast Asia. In third place is Counter-Strike 2, followed by VALORANT, and then Dota 2 in fifth place. 2024 represents the first time that VALORANT has surpassed Dota 2 in total hours watched. While the Dota 2 scene suffered due to the discontinuing of the Dota Pro Circuit, VALORANT continued to grow internationally.
Esports Charts’ data doesn’t track viewership from Chinese livestreaming platforms though, due to “the unreliability of the reported statistics and lack of transparency in regards to how they are calculated.” But it’s clear that China is a massive priority for the top performing games. VALORANT expanded with the VCT China League in 2024, and also saw the first Chinese team, EDward Gaming, win its world championship. For the first time in Counter-Strike’s illustrious history, a Major was held in Shanghai, where Team Spirit lifted the trophy.
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