Live streaming has become a worldwide source of entertainment for millions of people. From Brazil to Vietnam, all sorts of streams from all around the world have become hugely successful and popular. Originally growing out of video game live streams, the culture and identity of what it means to be a streamer or creator has evolved into something new. Streamers are no longer confined to their bedroom with a webcam, but hosting events which cost millions to produce and draw in more viewership than traditional broadcasting events.
Analysed through Streams Charts’ data, we will be looking at the biggest live stream broadcasts ever, using the metric of Hours Watched. From courts to galas and stadiums, these are the most-watched streams of all time.
Important to note, we’ve excluded any streams that accumulated over 100 hours of airtime. The reason is to avoid 24/7 live streams that collect large amounts of Hours Watched through passive viewership and inflate their Hours Watched through streaming for hundreds of hours.
#10: Johnny Depp v Amber Heard - Day 22 (7.7M Hours Watched)
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard together in court
The Johnny Depp v Amber Heard court case was one of the most-followed court cases in recent history. The two celebrities met in court over a defamation issue and the judge for the case allowed the proceedings to be live-streamed, a decision which was heavily criticised on its merits. Nevertheless, the case was streamed by Law&Crime Network on their YouTube channel and brought in millions of Hours Watched and the stream reached 1.2M Peak Viewers on Day 22 of the trial.
A year later the streams of this case remain Law&Crime Network’s most popular ever. In fact, the top 15 of Law&Crime Network’s streams per Hours Watched are all related to the Depp v Heard case. Don’t be surprised to find another one of these streams further up the list.
#9: Escape from Tarkov 48 hour stream (8.3M Hours Watched)
Streamer Pestily who was at one point the most subscribed to channel on Twitch
Coming up at number nine on the list is Pestily’s 48 hour Escape from Tarkov stream. The Aussie is one of the most popular content creators on Twitch from his country, with over 1.2M Followers landing him a spot in Australia’s top five.
It is clear that Twitch Drops have a huge effect on viewership and this stream is a perfect example. Pestily took advantage of the Drops system by hosting regular streams with huge Airtime. During 2020 and 2022 Pestily often streamed for over 24 hours at a time, all along with Drops enabled. The stream lasted two days and during this time Pestily brought in 225K Peak Viewers for the stream, a new record for the streamer. During Pestily’s biggest stream ever he averaged 168K viewers throughout the 48 hours and gained almost 75K Followers.
Two years later, in December 2022, Pestily would host another 24-hour Drops-enabled stream and reach a peak of 246K concurrent viewers. Although he only reached 4.2M Hours Watched the stream continues to be successful. Having turned into a yearly tradition, Pestily’s marathon Escape from Tarkov streams with Drops enabled continued to be his most successful content of the year.
#8: Premios ESLAND 2023 (8.6M Hours Watched)
The second edition of Premios ESLAND was hosted in early 2023. The event, run by TheGrefg, honours and gives awards to the best Hispanic streamers of the year. With a total of 18 awards presented, the show lasted for just over six hours.
The event peaked at 1.39M concurrent viewers and amassed 8.6M Hours Watched. Premios ESLAND marks the first collaborative special event on the list, but don’t expect it to be the last. Events like the Premios ESLAND allow live-streaming communities to come together and celebrate themselves. Not only is this healthy for the community, but it also allows creators to take full advantage of their audience. Special events continue to be some of the largest and most-watched content on Twitch and other live-streaming platforms, likely due to how easily it allows creators to combine their audiences into one stream.
#7: Johnny Depp v Amber Heard - Day 24 (8.6M Hours Watched)
Heading back to Law&Crime Network, their streams of the case snagged them another spot on this list. Coming in at #10 was Day 22 of the case, one of the final proceedings of the hearing. Day 24 managed to surpass the previous two days, coming in at 8.6M Hours Watched with a Peak Viewers of 1.4M. Throughout the nine and a half hours of broadcasting, the Average Viewers figure remained at 898K.
Day 24 saw both sides of the court present their closing arguments to the jury. After a long month of legal proceedings, this stream marked a close to the saga, with only the jury’s verdict remaining. A verdict was read on the 1st of June 2022, and although it didn’t surpass Day 24, the stream reached 5.8M Hours Watched and set a record for the channel with 3.5M Peak Viewers all waiting for the verdict concurrently.
#6: FC Vasco da Gama vs FC Flamengo Semi Final 2023 (8.9M Hours Watched)
Casimiro winning Personality of the Year at the 2021 eSports Brasil Awards
CazéTV on YouTube, known as Casimiro or Casimito on Twitch, is a Brazilian sports broadcaster known for his coverage of football events. In 2023 Casimiro acquired the rights to broadcast the games of FC Vasco da Gama and another club. Vasco da Gama, based out of Rio de Janeiro, met FC Flamengo in the 2023 playoffs stage of the Brazillian football league.
FC Flamengo, also based out of Rio de Janeiro, went on to win the league for the year and their match against Vasco da Gama was highly watched. Over 8.9M Hours Watched were viewed for the sporting match and CazéTV reached 4.79M Peak Viewers on the YouTube stream. This makes the event the second-most-popular YouTube stream of the year per Peak Viewers. However, the stream is not even the most-popular event CazéTV has hosted.
#5: Nimo TV Global Gala 2023 (9.6M Hours Watched)
Streamers and celebrities gather at the Nimo TV Global Gala 2023
Nimo TV hosted its first Global Gala on April 8th 2023 at the White Palace in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. The event saw celebrity guests and live streamers from around the world gather themselves to witness one of the biggest awards shows of the year.
Not only an awards show, Nimo TV also announced their upcoming vision for the company at the event. The event reached a wide audience and had 3M Peak Viewers watching. At the time of the event, this made the stream the most popular Nimo TV stream in the site’s history. With over 3M viewers concurrently spectating, the event was twice as popular in comparison to the second-most-popular stream on the site.
The event remains the most-popular Nimo TV stream ever and is the only stream on this list that was not hosted on either YouTube or Twitch. As the Chinese platform continues to develop and expand its influence around the globe, Nimo TV could end up being a competitor to current market titans like Twitch and YouTube.
#4: Brazil vs South Korea World Cup 2022 Round-of-16 (12.3M Hours Watched)
South Korea meet Brazil in the Round-of-16
The first stream on this list to break the 10M Hours Watched barrier, CazéTV represents not only the love and passion for football in Brazil but also how uniting as a nation can help creators maximise their viewership.
CazéTV not only got broadcasting rights for the Brazillian league, but he also streamed the 2022 World Cup on YouTube, becoming the first creator to broadcast the event. Casimito received the rights to broadcast through Live Mode, a company that works with broadcasting rights for sporting events.
The Round of 16 event against South Korea drew in 5.2M Peak Viewers, 400K more than his stream of the Vasco da Gama game. CazéTV amassed 12.3M Hours Watched during his almost six hours of Airtime, and the streamer averaged over 2M Average Viewers throughout. Brazil is the most successful team in World Cup history with five championships and the support from their country is monstrous. Having not won a World Cup since 2002, fans are eagerly awaiting every World Cup as their next chance at glory. If 5.2M Peak Viewers tuned in for the Round of 16 match, how many would tune in for the Quarter-Finals?
#3: La Velada Del Año II (13.8M Hours Watched)
Victors of La Velada Del Año II
La Velada Del Año is a boxing event hosted by ibai. The event sees streamers, creators, and celebrities all come together to decide who has the best right hook. The event’s second iteration in mid-2022 was broadcasted to huge success. The event was hosted at the Badalona Olympic Pavilion, where over 12K spectators could view the event in person.
Despite thousands of people viewing the event in person, the boxing stream set the record for the most-popular stream on Twitch, with over 3.3M Peak Viewers spectating. Ibai has found great success with these boxing events and they continue to deliver. With 13.8M Hours Watched in less than six hours of Airtime, the event is simply proof of the power behind the Spanish-speaking community on Twitch and other live-streaming platforms. Events like La Velada del Año which assemble and unite communities will always continue to dominate viewership metrics.
#2: Brazil vs Croatia World Cup 2022 Quater-Finals (17.2M Hours Watched)
As you’d expect, the Quater-Finals match streamed by CazéTV was even more popular than the Round of 16 match. Brazil against Croatia drew in 6.1M Peak Viewers, a record for live streaming on all platforms, and 17.2M Hours Watched were collected in only less than five hours of Airtime.
Unfortunately, the game did not go Brazil’s way. Brazil struggled to knock Croatia out and the game ended in a 1-1 draw. Exactly what happened to Croatia in the Round of 16 against Japan, they managed a 1-1 draw but Croatia was superior when it came to penalties. Despite losing out against Croatia, CazéTV averaged 3.6M viewers throughout the stream, more than ibai’s Peak Viewers with La Velada Del Año II.
CazéTV remains the first person to ever live stream the World Cup and the metrics show there is a huge demand for this kind of stream. Sadly, with Brazil getting knocked out in the Quarter-Finals we will never know how high Casimito could have reached with a Grand Finals stream.
#1 La Velada Del Año III (22.6M Hours Watched)
Ibai, the mastermind behind the La Velada Del Año series
Coming in at number one is the third edition of ibai’s La Velada Del Año. La Velada Del Año III beat ibai’s own record with the second iteration of the event; the third edition brought in over 22.6M Hours Watched, the only stream in live streaming history to break the 20M Hours Watched barrier. The event saw an increase of almost 9M Hours Watched from 2022 to 2023.
Most watched live streams of all time per Hours Watched
As mentioned at the start of this piece, we excluded events with over 100 hours of Airtime so that creators could shine instead of 24-hour news networks. However, even when these other streams are taken into account, ibai maintains the top spot on the ranking with almost 2M more Hours Watched than the second-most-viewed stream.
La Velada Del Año now consistently brings in more viewership than major sporting events, and the numbers are only going up every year. Live streaming quickly became a worldwide industry, but its reach and popularity of it are always evolving and changing. Before ibai, reaching 20M Hours Watched on a single stream seemed like a fairy tale, and CazéTV being able to stream the World Cup on YouTube to his entire audience is ground-breaking content for the industry. How these streamers and their content will continue to evolve and be received is only seen one way: in the metrics.
