Former LCS pro player Doublelift revealed earlier today on his Twitch livestream that he has been suspended from co-streaming LCS matches due to his comments on the league’s “dying” viewership numbers that he made earlier this week.
According to Doublelift, the suspension is for this upcoming week of games.
Doublelift chastised the LCS earlier this week for the league’s handling of a showmatch between various content creators in the League space, including Mr. Beast, Ninja, Tyler1, Ludwig, and others. No active LCS players participated in the event, despite certain pros apparently expressing interest in playing to some degree.
The League star said the LCS prevented Liquid mid laner Bjergsen from competing, although he had been originally slated to play on Mr. Beast’s team in the match.
The decision to disallow Bjergsen from competing in the “Ultimate Crown” event was a missed opportunity for the LCS, according to Doublelift. In his original comments on Wednesday, July 11, the former pro AD carry said the “LCS could not pay Mr. Beast enough to insert one of their players into an event that is watched by so many kids—a completely different audience, so many kids, so many impressionable people who would potentially be interested in the game or watching LCS.”
Related: Doublelift claims LCS ‘blocked’ Bjergsen from Mr. Beast showmatch
As part of his comments against the LCS’ decision-making process surrounding the showmatch, Doublelift didn’t hold back when speaking on the declining viewership of the North American League scene.
“LCS is dying,” Doublelift said at the time. “The viewership is absolutely dying. There’s no denying it. Everyone knows it. Everyone can feel it.”
As a result of those comments, Doublelift has been suspended from co-streaming the league’s games this weekend, according to further comments made on his stream earlier today.
“A couple days ago, I was talking about how the LCS was so stupid for not letting Bjergsen play in the Mr. Beast tournament, and I think I said the words ‘LCS is dying,’” Doublelift said. “Your boy got extremely turbo-headshot by LCS. I’m on my second strike…which means I can’t co-stream this upcoming weekend of LCS.”
The intricacies of the League’s strike system for co-streamers are unclear. According to Doublelift, he earned another strike earlier in his partnership with Riot while watching a YouTube video on stream that included “some profanity.”
Related: LCS sits behind LCK, LEC, and CBLOL in average viewership
Doublelift’s original comments about the “dying” viewership of the LCS do hold truth to them, despite the league’s efforts to counteract the former pro’s statement. According to viewership data site EsportsCharts, the LCS is drawing 40,000 fewer viewers to broadcasts on average, in comparison to 2021 Summer Split.
Last weekend’s Ultimate Crown showmatch drew over 69,000 average viewers across its four-hour runtime on Twitch, approximately 15,000 more than the third week of the 2022 LCS Summer Split did, according to viewership site TwitchTracker.
The LCS will return from a two-week break from action on Saturday, July 16.
