The weekend of July 13 was a monumental moment for Spanish culture. The men’s national soccer team won Euro 2024, native son Carlos Alcaraz conquered Wimbledon for the second year in a row, and Ibai Llanos rewrote the Twitch record books once again. The Bilbao-born streamer set a new high-water mark for concurrent Twitch viewers during the fourth annual edition of La Velada del Año, an influencer boxing event.
As with previous iterations, the fourth installment of La Velada del Año (which translates to “The Night of the Year”) featured multiple boxing matchups between big-name creators. As has become the norm, those bouts drew a record-breaking audience on Ibai’s Twitch account. In 2022, the second Velada reached 3.3 million concurrent viewers, and the 2023 threequel eclipsed that mark with 3.4 million concurrents.
The 2024 follow-up to those matches blew the previous viewership records out of the water. According to Streams Charts, La Velada del Año IV peaked at 3.85 million concurrent viewers on Ibai’s account. The event also contributed to a different record: While it was going on, Twitch reached 6.74 million concurrent viewers sitewide, which is its highest-ever total. When other streams from La Velada are factored in, 4.34 million of those concurrents came from channels that were streaming Ibai’s masterstroke.
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La Velada del Año IV also drew a massive in-person audience to go along with its record-setting Twitch viewership. The event sold out Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, the home of the reigning Spanish domestic champions Real Madrid.
This is not the first time Ibai has gathered at least 80,000 fans for a streamer-led spectacle. He was one of the driving forces behind the Kings League, a soccer tournament that sold out F.C. Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium for its inaugural final in 2023. Camp Nou, with a capacity of more than 99,000, is the only Spanish sports venue that fits more fans than the Bernabéu.
Highlights of La Velada del Año IV included a two-on-two match, a ten-person “King of the Ring” free-for-all, and musical performances from the likes of Will Smith. The amount of planning that went into the event is remarkable, and Ibai will be the frontrunner to claim the Event of the Year trophy when Spain’s marquee creator award show — Los Premios ESLAND — returns in 2025.
