RIP LCS
The LCS Is Dying: Viewership Reaches New Low
The LCS has not been having a good time recently, especially with the player strikes. While the showing at the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational was decent, it seems that viewership continues to waver, which has many fans concerned over the future of the league.
Riot has reiterated over and over again that they care about North American League of Legends, but with viewership numbers as low as never before, fans wonder what the future will hold for the league and whether more teams are going to be leaving, like CLG and TSM.
LCS First Day Peak Viewership Is Abysmal
Esports charts recently revealed the peak viewership of the first match of the 2023 LCS Summer Split and if you're a fan of the LCS, then you better look away because this is very... sad. The first match, which was a re-match of the LCS Spring Split finals between C9 and Golden Guardians only raked in 77K viewers.
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This is quite sad, especially after great viewership results came from the Delta Fox and Disguised show match which took place recently. That alone, with the help of multiple co-streams managed over 80K, even dipping into the 100K peak viewership numbers when taking Tyler1 and his reach into account.
This goes to show that viewers are not disinterested in League of Legends in North America, not at all, but it is concerning to see the numbers of the LCS reach such lows. What people don't seem to care about is the current state of the LCS.
On Reddit many fans also expressed that they weren't even aware that the LCS had started up again. Some European League of Legends fans explained that they would have tuned in to some matches had they known that the LCS was kicking off their Summer Split on June 14, 2023.
It isn't just Riot that needs to make fans care for the LCS again, but the teams themselves. Disguised joining League of Legends and the Challenger league has breathed in new life to the league and put a spotlight on it, even for casual viewers.
The LCS of old also had multiple players and personalities people cared for, but much of that has been lost in recent times it seems. The change to weekday and afternoon games probably also hasn't helped the LCS retain a lot of viewers either, eh?