KOI, the esports organization founded by popular Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos and soccer superstar Gerard Piqué, made its debut in League of Legends esports yesterday at the Palau San Jordi in Barcelona, Spain.
The new European squad on the block defeated Karmine Corp, now the home of former Fnatic and G2 star Rekkles, 2-1 in a showmatch. The best-of-three series had an average viewership of 417,514 people and peaked at 477,279, according to esports statistics website EsportsCharts.
These numbers are certainly noteworthy. The showmatch between KOI and Karmine Corp produced a higher viewership peak than the 2021 LCS Summer Split grand finals in August, which peaked at 364,328 people, according to EsportsCharts.
The debut of Ibai and Piqué’s League team was better than a lot of the 2021 LEC Summer Split playoff matches in terms of viewership, too. The only series that had a higher peak viewership than yesterday’s showmatch were the bout between G2 and Fnatic, which peaked at 843,491 viewers, and Fnatic vs. MAD Lions in the grand finals, which had 729,308 people watching simultaneously at some point, according to EsportsCharts.
This goes to show how much of an impact people like Ibai and Piqué can have on esports. Ibai is one of the most popular streamers and content creators in the world. He has over 6.6 million followers on Twitter and over 8.6 million followers on Twitch.
Piqué, on the other hand, has been playing for Barcelona, one of the biggest soccer clubs in the world, since 2008 and was also a part of the Spanish national team that won the FIFA World Cup in 2010. The Spanish duo acquired AstralisSB’s Superliga spot for 300,000 euros in September to enter the League scene and will soon have a VALORANT team as well.
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