The 2026 FIFA World Cup shaped the livestreaming industry from the moment it began. It was the largest event across the platforms Streams Charts covers, though its impact looked very different from one platform to the next.
On YouTube, CazéTV’s official Brazilian coverage of the World Cup pulled in huge audiences and pushed non-gaming viewership sharply higher.
Twitch went the other way. It did not carry official World Cup broadcasts, and football watch parties barely moved its numbers. The quarter there was defined instead by Nicholas “Jynxzi” Stewart’s entertainment-focused creator tournaments and by major esports events, including the IEM Cologne Major, LCK, and VALORANT Masters. Esports broadcasts on Twitch grew their Hours Watched by 22.4% in Q2 2026.
This Streams Charts report covers how the leading livestreaming platforms performed and which events defined the industry in Q2 2026.
Major takeaways
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Q2 2026 was the biggest quarter in livestreaming history, with 31.4 billion Hours Watched across every platform Streams Charts tracks. The start of the World Cup drove much of that, and a run of major entertainment events kept audiences watching through the rest of the quarter.
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Kick keeps closing on Twitch. Twitch still produced about three times more Hours Watched, but the gap is much smaller than a year ago, when it was closer to five times.
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June was the strongest month for nearly every major platform. Twitch was the exception: its highest Hours Watched came in May. Even so, June gave Twitch its best Peak Viewers result in 11 months, when Summer Game Fest 2026 broadcasts pushed the platform past 4.4 million concurrent viewers.
Livestreaming content consumption Q2 2026: Breakdown by platforms
According to Streams Charts, the platforms in this report generated more than 31.43 billion Hours Watched in Q2 2026. That is 8% higher than the previous quarter and the biggest quarterly total the industry has recorded.
YouTube added the most to that growth, passing 15.5 billion Hours Watched in Q2, up 14.8% from Q1. It accounted for 49.5% of all livestreaming Hours Watched, a share that has held steady for several quarters.
TikTok LIVE and Twitch changed little from Q1 2026, both staying within a 1% range. Kick grew its total Hours Watched by 7.6% quarter over quarter.
Kick also keeps a fairly even split between gaming and non-gaming content while building up its esports coverage. Esports broadcasts on the platform generated 66% more Hours Hatched than in Q1 2026, driven mainly by Counter-Strike tournaments, above all the IEM Cologne Major 2026.
According to Streams Charts, YouTube’s Q2 2026 growth came mostly from Sports and Entertainment. Non-gaming content generated 19.6% more Hours Watched than in the previous quarter.
Sports was the biggest driver, led by CazéTV’s official Brazilian coverage of the World Cup. The channel produced more than a billion Hours Watched and broke several all-time viewership records. Compared with Q1, Peak Viewers rose 327%, while Hours Watched and Average Viewers both nearly doubled.
Entertainment also had a strong quarter. Hours Watched and Average Viewers each rose about 50% against Q1, mostly on the back of Alofoke Radio Show and HotSpanish Vlogs. Q2 also included several large gaming showcases, including Summer Game Fest, Future Games Show, and Nintendo Direct, with YouTube as the main home for their live broadcasts.
YouTube Gaming lost 12.4% in Hours Watched compared with Q1 2026, partly because esports broadcasts are spreading across more platforms. As tournament organizers widen their distribution, YouTube is no longer the default home for several major esports ecosystems. In the LCK, YouTube’s share of total Hours Watched dropped from 46.5% in the 2025 season to 25.5% in 2026, with more viewers moving to local platforms such as SOOP and CHZZK. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang shows a similar pattern. YouTube’s share of MPL Indonesia fell from 63% to 58% over the past two seasons, and TikTok LIVE has passed YouTube as the top platform for MPL Philippines.
The decline also reflects an unusually strong Q1, lifted by the M7 World Championship. That tournament generated more than 135.5 million Hours Watched, with roughly half the audience on YouTube. Q2 had no esports event on that scale. The IEM Cologne Major gave YouTube a clear boost, but not enough to match what M7 had done the quarter before.
Twitch took a different path from the other major platforms in Q2 2026, and the split was clearest in June. YouTube, TikTok LIVE, and Kick all hit their quarterly Hours Watched peak that month; Twitch did not. Summer Game Fest 2026 broadcasts drove its highest Peak Viewers figure in 11 months, yet June was still Twitch’s weakest month for Hours Watched since February.
Twitch’s strongest month was May, before both the World Cup and the IEM Cologne Major. Much of that came from the attention around Jynxzi and his creator-led tournament series, which helped him finish as Twitch’s most-watched streamer of the quarter by Hours Watched. That gap points to a real difference between Twitch and its rivals: the platform still runs more on its creator ecosystem than on major global sports or entertainment.
Among the smaller platforms, CHZZK stood out again. The Korean service has grown for several quarters and is now close to SOOP in total Hours Watched. Its World Cup coverage was the main driver this quarter, and CHZZK also kept expanding its role in the LCK and major international League of Legends events.
The rest of the smaller platforms were far more volatile, with results often tied to a single event or broadcast. On Bigo LIVE, the MENA GAMING COMMUNITY channel produced most of the platform’s viewership through major mobile esports tournaments. Steam grew Hours Watched by 56%, driven mostly by its IEM Cologne Major coverage.
Rumble’s Hours Watched fell 27% from the previous quarter. The platform stays closely tied to the news cycle. Coverage of the U.S.-Iran conflict drove strong viewership in February and March, but interest faded through Q2 and engagement dropped.
NimoTV kept declining, with more of its remaining audience clustered around a small group of leading Vietnamese creators. Trovo went a different way entirely: during Q2 2026 it stepped back from livestreaming and moved its focus to other gaming projects.
FAQ
What was the total Hours Watched for the livestreaming industry in Q2 2026?
The livestreaming industry generated a record 31.4 billion Hours Watched across all platforms tracked in Q2 2026.
Which platform contributed most to livestreaming growth in Q2 2026?
YouTube was the biggest contributor to growth, reaching over 15.5 billion Hours Watched in Q2, a 14.8% increase from the previous quarter.
How did the FIFA World Cup impact livestreaming in Q2 2026?
The 2026 FIFA World Cup significantly drove growth, particularly on YouTube through CazéTV’s official Brazilian coverage, which generated over one billion Hours Watched.
What was the performance of Kick compared to Twitch in Q2 2026?
Kick increased its total Hours Watched by 7.6% quarter over quarter, narrowing the gap with Twitch, which still generated roughly three times more Hours Watched.
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