Last year, we announced a partnership with Nielsen to develop evolved and more transparent viewership measurements for League of Legends esports, including LCS. A few months later, we revealed that LCS is the third-most popular major professional sports league in the US among 18- to 34-year-olds, based on the data we’ve collected and analyzed with Nielsen. This information was energizing for us and our community, and Nielsen’s experience and resources give us confidence that it accurately describes LCS’ popularity in an important way. 

In an added layer to our partnership, LCS is working with Nielsen to develop the first-ever “live+” measurement system for esports broadcasts. Live+ ratings look at viewership for live broadcasts and related on-demand or replay video afterwards to calculate the total audience for the programming content, still leveraging the new industry standard for viewership reporting — average minute audience (AMA). This metric will measure live and on-demand LCS viewership more accurately than ever before, and will parallel Nielsen’s live+ TV ratings, which aggregate live and on-demand viewership within a designated time window to present a more complete picture of TV viewership engagement. Live+ metrics will help us understand LCS viewership better on its own and provide a direct way to compare with both live and time-shifted televised content — another first in esports.

Our preliminary tracking in the 2019 season shows double-digit growth in LCS viewership through VODs — one example of a key insight powered by Nielsen that we can use to better understand the audience experience. We will have more news to share soon, so stay tuned.