This doesn't feel right...
LoL: Fans and Experts Unhappy With New LCS Broadcast Time
Riot just announced their broadcast schedule for the 2023 season. Some regions are more or less keeping their original schedule, while other regions are getting revamped completely, like the LEC that is getting a whole new tournament system in 2023.
But one region, the one that has been suffering and lagging behind as a major region in terms of viewership is the LCS and the changes made to the LCS schedule has fans, as well as on-air talent concerned about the future of the LoL esports broadcast of the region.
LoL: LCS Broadcast Time Issue
The LCS will be moving to weekdays, which in and of itself isn't bad. There are a multitude of sports leagues that have games even on weekdays with the NBA and NHL having games every single day of the week and people still tuning in to watch the games.
The LCS isn't the only region changing their schedule:
The real issue with the new LCS schedule is the time the broadcast is set to start. The new days for the LCS will be Thursday and Friday. That sounds fine, but then you see that Riot has decided that games will start at 12:00 PM Pacific Time (3:00 PM Eastern Time) and that's where the issue lies.
Fans are understandably upset with this change of schedule since this will likely coincide with work, university or school, especially for those living on the West Coast. It also means that fewer fans could show up to the live events because they won't have time to take a day off to go watch at the LCS Arena.
According to Riot they did extensive research into viewer behaviour and found that "watching a favorite stream while studying, viewing esports has become part of a weekday routine for many". But the time they've set the LCS broadcast to doesn't even allow students to be studying, since it'll be in the middle of class.
Another issue with the schedule reasoning is that Riot stated that players felt exhausted from the long cumulative hours of watching esports on the weekends, hence why they want to 'spread it out' on the weekdays, but by only having two LCS days a week, means that once again fans would have to sit down and watch huge blocks of esports rather than spreading it out.
We’ve found that consistently long viewing sessions are hard on viewers: 45% of viewers surveyed reported that they felt exhausted after watching a full day of LoL Esports
All Santa Skins in League of Legends
While some fans did state that Riot would make sure to have the more exciting games on later on in the day, this doesn't bode well for less-known teams or teams without as big of a following. If teams like Golden Guardians and Immortals face off at noon, the viewership numbers will certainly dwindle and it will also stop the teams from building a fan base since they're going to always be overlooked.
LCS Casters Worried About Future of Region
It's not just the fans that are worried about the future of the LCS with this broadcast information. Caster Isaac "Azael" Cummings Bentley, spoke out on Twitter stating that he is concerned about this change. He explained that he isn't sure whether the average Twitch viewer habits correlate to the average LCS viewers.
Riot did state that they would listen to the community and continue to work with the schedule to improve it, but it seems that the community is already unhappy with this schedule and they feel that the LCS will only suffer from the early start time.