Community casting accounted for 46.7% of esports watch time
Community casting drove 46.7% of total watch time across major esports in H1 2026, with effects varying by game, language market and a small group of top creators.
Analysis of tournaments that logged more than 10 million hours watched in the first half of 2026 shows community casting accounted for 46.7% of total watch time, nearly matching official tournament broadcasts.
The split varied by game. Counter-Strike viewers divided roughly evenly between official channels and creator streams. League of Legends, Dota 2 and Rocket League had larger creator audiences while official broadcasts retained significant watch time. Tournaments for Call of Duty, Fortnite, Apex Legends and Valorant drew almost all watch time through community streams rather than the official feeds.
Major mobile esports remained concentrated on official broadcasts. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Arena of Valor and Battlegrounds Mobile India registered most watch time on organizer-run channels, particularly in markets with local-language official feeds.
Language and regional habits influenced co-casting patterns. English was the largest language group and official channels captured the majority of English watch time. Indonesian, Vietnamese, Tagalog and Hindi viewers favored official streams. Russian, Spanish, Turkish and German viewers leaned toward creator streams. Korean, Portuguese, Japanese and French audiences split between official broadcasts and creator channels.
Creator viewership was concentrated among a small group of streamers. The top 15 co-streamers generated more than 216 million hours watched in H1 2026, equal to 27.9% of all community-stream watch time in the games analyzed. Marc “Caedrel” Lamont led the list by a wide margin. Several Russian-language creators, including Ivan “StRoGo” Shurpatov, Roman “RAMZES” Kushnarev and Igor “SL4M” Sopov ranked near the top.
League of Legends appeared most often among the top creator channels across multiple languages. Counter-Strike’s community audience was distributed among several high-volume creators rather than centered on a single dominant streamer. Creator-led viewing occurred across multiple platforms, including Twitch, YouTube and regional services.
Rights holders, tournament organizers and brands adjusted planning to reflect the split between official and creator streams. Rights holders pursued methods to monitor and monetize viewership on creator channels, and brands partnered with leading co-streamers to reach audiences that did not tune into the official broadcast.
The H1 2026 figures quantify watch-time distribution across games, language markets and individual creators.
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