League of Legends All-Star 2019 viewership suffers big drop from last year

While League of Legends has become Twitch’s top game of 2019, it looks like this year’s All-Star event has seen a significant drop in viewership compared to the 2018 tournament. In fact, the All-Star 2019 competition saw the lowest viewing figures for the event since 2016.

That’s according to Esports Charts (via The Loadout) which indicates the League of Legends All-Star 2019 viewership was over two million hours lower than it was for last year’s event. The site’s stats indicate the total number of hours watched on streaming platforms hit 4,126,052, whereas last year’s event reached 6,490,876. This is the lowest number posted since 2016’s All-Star Barcelona, which drew 6,137,976 hours viewership.

The peak viewers was also quite a lot lower this year, sitting at 293,351 compared to 565,909 at the 2018 All-Star tournament, as were the average viewers – 192,657 in 2019 from 324,544 in 2018.

This is perhaps a little surprising given the 2018 and 2019 events had similar length air times, and this year’s All-Star meet featured some of LoL competition’s favourite names and influencers.

Comments on Reddit could perhaps indicate why numbers were lower this year, however, with some fans raising questions about its time slot, participation selection format, game modes included, and the extent of Riot’s autobattler Teamfight Tactics’ presence – its first ever appearance at the event. It remains to be seen if or how Riot will change the format for 2020.

In other League of Legends news, Riot has confirmed that new LoL games are on the way, and a “story-driven, single-player” League of Legends game will debut at The Game Awards. You can also check out the League of Legends patch 9.24 notes to get your first look at the changes headed to the game.