The most watched esports channels in 2021

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In 2021, the coronavirus subsided slightly, which marked the end of the online era, and esports was finally able to take a breather. Many tournaments were held offline, and some gathered full halls of fans. Even Valve decided to host the long-awaited The International 10 in Dota 2 and PGL Stockholm Major in CS:GO, which were canceled in 2020. Because of this, the ranking of the most watched esports channels in 2021 has undergone some changes.

Most watched esports Twitch channels in 2021

Last year, CS:GO channel ESL was in the lead by a wide margin in terms of Hours Watched. But in 2021, it lost to LCK_Korea and dropped to the second spot. The channel of the professional Korean League of Legends League channel which broadcasted the Worlds 2021 in Korean, amassed 77.56M Hours Watched, while ESL_CSGO amassed 74.8M Hours Watched. LCK_Korea has been able to skyrocket from last year's fifth spot and break into the lead because LCK stopped broadcasting on YoFFuTube, causing most of the audience to switch to Twitch.

The second spot is held by the official Riot Games channel, which collected 58.9M Hours Watched in 2021 thanks to the broadcasts of all the top international and regional League of Legends tournaments, including LEC, LCS, and LCK. Some other games of the company were also streamed there (Legends of Runeterra, LoL: Wild Rift, Valorant), as well as the Arcane TV-series premiere.

Closing the top 4 with a result of 51.5M Hours Watched was a channel of the French studio OTP, which covers League of Legends in French. It is noteworthy that the channel began its activities in January 2021 and was able to climb to such a high position in just 12 months. This was facilitated by the rise of popularity of the LFL due to the change of the production team and the joining of the Karmine Corp team, owned by one of the most popular streamers in France – Kamet0.

The fifth spot in the top was taken by the RocketLeague game channel, where the main streams of RLCS are conducted. It collected 50.3M Hours Watched in a year. This is definitely a success for the discipline, given that last year the channel had only 34M Hours Watched and reached the eighth spot.There was only one Dota 2-related channel in the top 10 esports channels of 2021 – dota2mc_ru (50M Hours Watched). Covered by the Maincast studio on this channel were such prestigious tournaments as WePlay AniMajor and ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021, as well as two major DPC leagues – ESL One Eastern Europe and DreamLeague Season 15 Western Europe.

Immediately following it in the top are the game channels VALORANT and Rainbow6, which in 2021 managed to generate 44.6M and 41.4M Hours Watched, respectively. Note that last year these channels failed to get into the top 10.

The last two channels in the top 10 specialize in broadcasting European and Brazilian LoL leagues (both Spring and Summer seasons). LEC and CBLOL have collected 39M and 35.8M Hours Watched, respectively.

In 2021 some notable channels left the rating. This applies to OgamingLoL (former French production studio covering LoL). Also RuHub’s Dota 2 channel didn’t make it to the top 10 after the Dota Pro Circuit resumed, as did the LCS channel.

Most watched Russian-speaking Twitch esports channels in 2021

Streams Charts also compiled a rating of the most popular esports Twitch channels among Russian-language studios and tournament operators. You can find more info in the Russian version of this article.

In 2021, the channels broadcasting League of Legends tournaments took six spots at once in the top 10 based on the number of Hours Watched. This suggests that Riot Games was rather efficient at developing and popularizing its MOBA. Perhaps thanks to the incredible success of the animated series Arcane, LoL will be able to attract even more viewers to its tournaments in 2022.