Worlds 2023 lived up to the hype in South Korea.
The League of Legends World Championship has officially come to an end as 
T1 lifted the Summoner's Cup for the fourth time in its storied run, the most out of any organisation. T1 went up against 
Weibo Gaming in a best-of-five series that saw them win in three straight games while also having defeated all four LPL teams on their journey to winning Worlds. And given that Worlds was held in South Korea this year, the tournament went on to break numerous records in the process.
According to Esports Charts, Worlds 2023 officially became the most popular esports tournament as it hit a peak viewership of 6,402,760 during the grand finals. This was taken through various live streams that included YouTube and Twitch as well as the peak viewership numbers from Korean, English, and Vietnamese broadcasts. However, this doesn't include the numbers from Chinese broadcasts that will surely be in the millions given the population and how big League of Legends is in China.
Image credit: LoL Esports
With a 6.4 million peak viewership, Worlds 2023 has officially overtaken its predecessors by a considerable margin. Here is how the last five Worlds have turned out:
- Worlds 2019 – 3.9 million peak viewers
- Worlds 2020 – 3.8 million peak viewers
- Worlds 2021 – 4 million peak viewers
- Worlds 2022 – 5.1 million peak viewers
- Worlds 2023 – 6.4 million peak viewers
While there was a slight dip during Worlds 2020, which was largely due to the pandemic, the yearly championship has steadily grown from strength to strength over the years by over a million viewers each time. One of the reasons that Worlds 2023 was so successful could be down to the fact that T1 stood a real chance to win this year along with seeing 
Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee lift his fourth Summoner's Cup. However, much of the numbers were aided by other language broadcasts, particularly from Korea and Vietnam.
- Korea peak viewership numbers: 2 million
- English peak viewership numbers: 1.69 million
- Vietnam peak viewership numbers: 805.3K
Image credit: LoL Esports
The rise of Vietnam in League of Legends is down to the reintroduction of the VCS on the world stage. While they were at Worlds 2022, this year saw significant improvement from the Vietnamese teams. 
GAM Esports made its fifth appearance at the world championship, the most of any VCS organisation while 
Team Whales made its debut and was nothing short of impressive during the Play-In Stage.
Worlds 2023 has also been officially recognised as the most popular esports tournament by far after it overtook the Free Fire World Series Singapore back in 2021. That tournament had a peak viewership of 5.4 million, the most out of any esports event. However, that was until Worlds 2023 came into the picture to witness a first-ever four-time world champion.
With over 146 hours watched for the entire tournament, Worlds 2023 managed an average viewership of 1,259,791. And this was the only record it failed to break as it came in second for total number of hours watched. It was actually Worlds 2021 that had the highest number with 174 hours watched.
