The LCK, South Korea’s top-tier League of Legends esports league, has recorded the second-highest peak viewership in the league’s history.
Over 1.6m people tuned in during the final series between Hanwha Life Esports and Gen.G Esports, according to data platform Esports Charts, making it the third most-watched series in LCK history.
This also it makes the most-watched LCK series that does not feature esports organisation T1, which has previously boosted numbers in these competitions due to its massive international fanbase.
Considering the average viewership of 328,753, the results show an increasing interest in the Korean league which featured five matches with over 1m peak viewers throughout the playoff stage. It is worth noting that Esports Charts don’t include Chinese viewership statistics, a major market for League of Legends.
The LCK 2024 Summer Split also hit over 88m hours of watch time. While it’s 10m less than the 2024 Spring Split, it marks an increase of over 26m hours compared to the same period last year, despite a decrease in total air time (270 hours in 2024 vs 289 hours in 2023), showing yet another positive trend for the competition.
In terms of broadcasters, YouTube hit a peak viewership of 875,228 viewers, compared to Twitch’s 414,684. Throughout the split, Twitch (41,839,037) had less than half of YouTube’s total views (89,732,204) as the latter is establishing its position as the go-to streaming platform for international viewers.
Just like previous splits, most of LCK’s viewership came from Korean-speaking channels with 788,722 peak viewers. However, this marks the first split that Vietnamese-speaking channels surpassed (344,177) the English-speaking ones (317,357).
With Hanwha Life Esports as the front-runners of the LCK, Korean teams will field four teams at the World Championship, which will take place in Europe over the next two months.
