Naver's live streaming platform Chijichik drew a record 4.82 million peak concurrent viewers for South Korea's opening match against Czech Republic at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Friday, far surpassing its previous all-time high. The result signals that community-style co-watching has spread well beyond esports into mainstream sports broadcasting.
Chijichik said the peak of 4.82 million simultaneous viewers was reached across its dedicated broadcast channel and co-watching streams hosted by popular streamers during the Group Stage match.
The figure dwarfs the platform's previous record of 760,000 peak concurrent viewers, set during coverage of the 2025 League of Legends World Championship last November. Although that event also drew heavy traffic to Chijichik's dedicated channel and streamer co-watches, Friday's World Cup opener attracted more than six times as many simultaneous viewers.
Popular streamer Han Dong-suk's co-watching broadcast alone drew roughly 360,000 viewers. "This shows that a community-driven viewing culture — where fans watch together with their favorite streamers and interact with other fans in real time — is spreading across sports content as a whole," a Chijichik official said.
Despite the massive traffic, the service remained stable throughout. "Even with 4.82 million peak concurrent viewers, we effectively distributed server load and maintained a stable viewing environment," the official said.
The record comes as Naver expands Chijichik into a full-scale sports broadcasting platform. Naver will stream all matches of the North America World Cup live on Chijichik through July 20. The tournament — co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico — is the first World Cup to expand its field from 32 to 48 nations, with a total of 104 matches making it the largest edition in the competition's history.
Throughout the tournament, Chijichik will run its dedicated broadcast channel alongside co-watching streams from creators including Han Dong-suk, Wolf, Shootforlove and EstarTV. Naver plans to offer real-time AI short-form clips during live matches, followed by VOD highlights and match analysis after each game. AI briefings drawing on official FIFA data will also be available, covering starting lineups, key watch points and player ratings.
Chijichik has also set up a dedicated World Cup lounge where users can join cheering, analysis and discussion threads and check real-time data including win probabilities, championship predictions, and match and player statistics. Additional content — including a mini-game developed in partnership with Nexon — will also be available.
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