At MSI 2024, Riot introduced many new changes to enhance the appeal of the first international tournament of the year for the League of Legends community. Being one of the two biggest events in League of Legends esports, MSI is often seen as a “warm-up” for the World Championship. Additionally, with the near-absolute dominance of the LPL, many viewers have become less enthusiastic about MSI. Even teams that fail here are considered to have nothing to worry about, as their goal is the World Championship that follows.
For T1, the situation is similar as they are placed in the Play-In Stage. Of course, Riot’s goal is still to attract more viewers, but the skill gap was evident when T1 easily overcame Estral Esports without exerting much effort. Nevertheless, Faker and his teammates can now take this opportunity to experiment with strategies before heading into the group stage. Meanwhile, just as the Play-In Stage kicked off, Riot achieved its goal.
Accordingly, the match between T1 and EST, despite the absolute skill gap between the two teams, garnered over 1.5 million views at its peak globally for Riot. Notably, this statistic does not include the streaming platforms exclusive to the LPL region. This match on the opening day had the highest viewership in MSI history. Additionally, compared to MSI 2023, the match between T1 and EST saw a viewership increase of 55% over last year’s highest match.
The viewership of the opening match between T1 and EST was 55% higher than the highest match of MSI 2023
Of course, alongside T1’s undeniable appeal, it’s worth mentioning that the Latin American region is developing a robust League of Legends scene. The Latin American region alone has two leagues, one for the entire region and another specifically for Brazil, which is enough to demonstrate the undeniable allure of this young yet highly promising League of Legends scene. In fact, one viewer even stated that if it were a match between T1 and LOUD (the top CBLOL team), the viewership would be even higher.
For their part, T1 still has one match that is predicted to be slightly more challenging than the one against EST, which is the showdown with FlyQuest. However, even so, T1 is still expected to secure their spot in the next round early after just 2 matches of the Play-In Stage at MSI 2024.