Spanish esports tournament organiser LVP continues to report record esports viewership figures, with another annual rise in 2022 for the League of Legends Superliga and other competitions.
LVP (Grup Mediapro) closed out the year with the highest audience figures in its history as the company reached 77.3 million cumulative viewers worldwide, a 10% increase over LVP’s 2021 viewer numbers (when the figure reached 69.8 million). This is up over the 56 million figure in 2020.
Content consumption data also marked an all-time high over its 12 years of life, with 45.1 million hours watched and a growth of 26% on the previous year (35.8 million hours watched in 2021).
How was the Superliga’s viewership figures in 2022?
The League of Legends Superliga, one of Europe’s most popular regional leagues along with France’s LFL, had 25.8 million viewers (including the LVP channel and co-streaming), 98% more than in 2021. The rise is largely due to co-streaming, as co-streaming hadn’t been introduced for the league back in 2021.
In addition, the tournament wrapped up the year with almost 11 million hours watched, twice as many as in 2021. And 2022 also saw the all-time peak of concurrent viewers for a domestic tournament at the Superliga summer final, in which Heretics beat Giants, reaching 92,479 concurrent viewers on the LVP channel, above the 73,596 viewers reached a year earlier.
In 2022, the Superliga returned to in-person events after a tough 2021 still marked by the pandemic.
The spring final, played at the Cartuja Center in Seville, sold out 2,000 tickets in less than a week, while more than 2,200 filled the Ubeat Live Barcelona stadium in July to follow a full day’s tournament. And the summer final, which was played at the IFEMA Municipal Palace, sold out after 48 hours.
Also, the League of Legends Iberian Cup 2022 played to a full house at PortAventura World.
The Superliga returns on January 16th 2023 with new broadcast days (Tuesday and Thursday), a new contender for the throne (Rebels Gaming, footballer David De Gea’s esports organisation) and other news to be announced soon.
The news comes after Riot announced changes to EMEA Regional Leagues and European League of Legends for 2023.
LVP ‘proud of double digit growth’
“Here at LVP we are very proud to continue double digit growth year-on-year,” said Jordi Soler, CEO of LVP. “2022 was a key year for us given that we were recovering in-person events after a two-year hiatus marked by the pandemic, but also because we laid the foundations to continue advancing in 2023.
“I would like to thank the publishers who entrusted us, the brands who commit to our tournaments and who fuel the rise of the sector and the teams that accompany us on this adventure and are our partners.
“Without the 20 teams in Spain and the 70 from LATAM who are such an integral part of our tournaments, we could not have continued building such a solid, enduring and attractive ecosystem.”
Jordi Soler, LVP
What about LVP’s other tournaments in 2022?
2022 also marked the debut of three other tournaments in Spain: Valorant Rising MediaMarkt Intel, which exceeded 9.8 million viewers (via LVP and co-streaming), the Superliga Segunda El Corte Inglés, the silver category of League of Legends, which reached 3.4 million viewers, and the Crossfire Cup, the cup that wrapped up Valorant’s competitive year.
Both the Valorant Rising MediaMarkt Intel and the Crossfire Cup had in-person finals, one held within the framework of Ubeat Live and the other in Barcelona.
For yet another year in succession, LVP remained the official channel in Spanish of the international circuits of League of Legends and Valorant, including a Spanish Worlds LoL broadcast which had more than 6.2 million viewers on the LVP channel.
Throughout 2022, LVP also produced the Wild Rift EMEA Championship for Riot Games, the European competition for the mobile game. This was before Riot ditched Wild Rift esports in the West as it refocuses on Asia for 2023.
In addition, in Latin America LVP worked on the Free Fire League for Garena and the Conmebol eLibertadores of EA Sports FIFA for Conmebol and Electronic Arts.
Also in Latin America, LVP worked on national tournaments in Argentina (Liga Master Flow), Mexico (División de Honor Telcel), Chile (Liga de Honor Entel), Colombia (Fibra Movistar Golden League), Ecuador (Volcano League) and Peru (Claro Gaming Stars League), which in 2022 has been joined by the Central American and Caribbean league (Elements League).
Together, LVP says it has surpassed 6.3 million cumulative viewers and 2.9 million hours watched in Latin America.
In-person events also returned to the region, with finals of the national tournaments at Ubeat Live in Mexico, which more than 2,700 people visited, and in Argentina, where around 2,000 people watched the title match live.
LVP esports in 2023
Looking ahead to 2023, LVP says it and Riot Games will ‘take the next step in consolidating LoL’s competitive ecosystem in the region and as such, will create two new regional leagues that will be the access point to the League of Legends (LLA) Latin American League’.
“The objective of this newly revamped system, which responds to several historical requests from the League of Legends community, will improve the competitive level, give greater stability to the ecosystem for brands and fans, generate new stories between teams and communities and, ultimately, build the fabric of a more solid and lasting sector over time,” LVP said in a press release.
Apart from its own tournaments, LVP has also provided its production services in 2022 to others. For example, LVP renewed its agreement with LaLiga and EA to lead the production of eLaLiga Santander 2022-23, the official EA Sports FIFA 23 tournament in Spain organised by LaLiga and EA which will launch on January 28th 2023, marking LVP’s sixth consecutive year as a producer of this tournament.
Looking ahead to 2023, LVP has also reached an agreement with Riot Games to be the producer of Game Changers in Latin America, Valorant’s women’s tournament.
Related article: Interview with Head of VCT Game Changers EMEA Ashley Washington
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.
