The LCK Summer Playoffs proved to be yet another major success for League of Legends and its esports scene, hitting new peak viewership numbers and establishing itself once again as one of the most-watched regions in the entire world.
T1 and Gen.G faced off in the finals for the second time this year and the third time in a row (the two also faced off in the LCK 2022 Summer Finals). With so many storylines and exciting matches throughout playoffs, everything lead to the climax when the two teams jumped into Summoners’ Rift at the Daejeon Dream Arena in the homonymous city.
The title-deciding series saw a peak of 1,528,729 online viewers, according to stat and data site Esports Charts, breaking the previous record of 1,463,312, which was recorded earlier this year in the LCK Spring Finals.
But aside from the peak viewership record, the LCK Summer Split also boasts a new milestone that proves the positive trend and rising interest in the Korean League: for the first time in its history, the LCK recorded over one million peak viewers across four different series. In most splits so far, the number of matches with this achievement was at a maximum of two.
Even though Gen.G had a dominant run throughout playoffs, fans hoped to see T1’s final resurgence after the disastrous second half of the regular split following Faker’s temporary break from competition due to a serious arm injury. The losers’ bracket finals between KT and T1, which recorded over 1,400,000 online viewers, hyped up the finals even more, but Faker and his team took a major beating, dropping 3-0 to Gen.G in a one-sided series.
Despite losing the championship and the first seed for Worlds, T1 proved again how important they are to the LCK’s success. Viewership took a major hit when Faker stood out for a month, but it instantly went back up again when he returned. And while many different series got incredible numbers, the average viewership still went down marginally by around eight percent (214,573 compared to 234,198 in spring).
Nonetheless, it’s a common trend to see average numbers go down in the second split compared to the first, so we shouldn’t worry too much about the decrease. Especially considering Worlds is around the corner: with both T1 and Gen.G already locked for the event, we might witness new records and milestones being achieved in the following months.
