Report on Royal Club causes spike of viewership in China's government-run CCTV

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

On January 13th CCTV5 ran a report on Royal Club's run representing China through the Season 3 World Championships, on a show titled "The World of Sports", that looked at the growth of esports. CCTV shot footage at the All-Star game in Beijing, and from the finals in Los Angeles at the Staples Center.

Chinese gaming portal 17173 reports that the program caused a boost in ratings for CCTV, earning sizable interest for the program over the next week in search results and Chinese social media networks. This includes Baidu searches for CCTV and "The World of Sports" program reaching more than 42 times in frequency than it's usual spot on the Baidu Index, which looks at Online trends from Chinese Internet users similar to Google Trends.

The League of Legends documentary surged the show on the Baidu Index to 6435 on the day of airing, and 8554 on the Index the following day. Since the CCTV show began in 2001, the Baidu Index for the show has stayed at a consistent 200, peaking only at 1856 and 973 in July 2011 and April 2013.

“This was not a case of games receiving a boost in interest from CCTV,” wrote the author at 17173. “This was a case of CCTV receiving a boost in interest from games!”

17173 reported that with the success of the episode and popularity of League of Legends, Dota 2, and other MOBA/ARTS games in China, CCTV may devote time in creating more esport documentaries in the future.

The episode on Royal Club and League of Legends can be watched in full (in Chinese) here.

Back in November, Pak Kan 'Tabe' Wong, former leader of of Royal Club, was banned from being employed in any capacity by the groups contained under Chinese eSports group L.ACE's expansive umbrella.