Spanish-language esports organisation LVP has posted its best audience figures in its 11+ year history.
By year-end, the company registered 69.8m cumulative viewers across all of its broadcasts, 24% more than in 2020
(56m).
There were more than 35.8m hours viewed overall, a rise of 45% compared to 2020.
The League of Legends Superliga, Spain’s European Regional League (ERL), drew 13m viewers in 2021, 37% more than the data registered for 2020. As such, the Superliga also marked a new record in terms of content hours consumed with 5.5m hours viewed (+39%), as well as a new peak in concurrent viewers, reaching 73,596 viewers for the summer grand finale held at the BigC in Barcelona – the highest figure in history for a Spanish LVP competition.
The news comes after Spain’s Spring 2021 League of Legends Superliga achieved its highest viewer numbers last year.
The Superliga is the second most popular ERL in LoL, behind France’s LFL. The Superliga had 73,000 peak viewers in the Summer 2021 Split according to Esports Charts, while the LFL had 183,000.
For 2022, there are a bunch of new teams playing in the Superliga, including Barcelona, who have just signed UK ADC player Deadly.
New team KOI, owned by content creator Ibai Llanos and footballer Gerard Piqué, are also taking part, as are Fnatic, who moved from the UK/Ireland/Nordics NLC to the Spanish league, through a partnership with Team Queso.
2021 was also a year of Valorant for LVP. The organiser launched the Valorant Rising Series, which closed out the year with 4m cumulative viewers and a final at the Barcelona International Convention Center (CCIB) in which more than
1,500 people watched Acend win.
LVP will continue with Valorant in 2022 with the Valorant Regional League in Spain.
LVP was the official Spanish language channel for the international League of Legends and Valorant tournaments, as well as that of CSGO Blast. LVP also handled the broadcast of the 2021 Horizon Cup, the international Wild Rift tournament.
LVP also renewed its agreement with LaLiga and EA to continue managing the production of eLaLiga Santander 2021-22, and it produced the broadcasts in Spanish and Portuguese for the Dota Pro Circuit of China during 2021, in addition to producing the LCK.
In terms of in-person tournaments, an audience of more than 3,000 people attended the CCIB in Barcelona with the finals of the Valorant Rising Series and the ESET Iberian Cup of League of Legends in November.
In December, LVP reached an agreement with ViacomCBS Networks International to drive the gaming area of VidCon Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates).
“2021 has been a historic year for LVP and for the esports sector at a national and international level. In Spain alone we’ve laid the foundations to guarantee delivery of the best Superliga in history, in addition to recovering face-to-face events.”
Jordi Soler, LVP
LVP operates the Latin America national leagues in LoL in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. The Telcel de México Honor Division increased 76% in minutes watched and the Golden League of Colombia reached more than 1.7m unique viewers accumulated throughout broadcasts in 2021, 55% more than the previous year.
LVP will continue as operator of the leagues in the region until at least 2024, and it will also organise the Central
American and Caribbean league.
In 2021, LVP also operated the national Free Fire leagues in the region and, together with Garena, produced the Free Fire League, the biggest mobile gaming league in Latin America. Looking ahead to 2022, LVP and Garena have launched Free Fire Challengers (North and South).
LVP has also produced other FIFA events including the eLiga BBVA MX 2021 in Mexico, and worked with the NFL on the Madden Challenger series.
Jordi Soler, CEO of LVP, said: “2021 has been a historic year for LVP and for the esports sector at a national and international level. In Spain alone we’ve generated the professional ecosystem for the development of a Valorant league in 2022 as well as laying the foundations to guarantee delivery of the best Superliga in history, in addition to recovering face-to-face events.
“In Latin America we have taken an additional step forward in the professionalisation of all tournament structures,
producing excellent audience figures and in addition, we’ve produced some of the best video gaming tournaments for third parties in the world.”
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
