League of Legends regional leagues in 2024: LCK soars, LCS declines steeply
It has been another busy yet productive season of League of Legends competitions, with several talking points emerging over the past nine months. Top-tier circuits like the LCK, LEC, and LPL have continued to see general viewership gains, with the Korean series reaching global event levels of popularity thanks to the peak concurrent viewership numbers it reached.
The CBLOL and VCS witnessed upward momentum that put them among the leagues with the most potential as fans begin looking forward to the upcoming season. While the former banked on the introduction of community casting to hit record numbers, the Vietnamese series saw the rise of one platform push its tournaments to new milestones
However, not everything was rosy, as the troubles of the LCS reached rock-bottom levels, with its audience hitting almost all-time low levels. Although its peak viewership saw a rise split-on-split, other metrics remained low, with FlyQuest potentially ending as the last-ever champion in the series as we know it.
LCK & LEC: Strengthening Their Leadership
As with recent seasons, we have to start with the LCK, which continues to put up numbers that belie its status as a regional league. The Spring split maintained the series' run of notching general viewership milestones with successive editions by shattering all previous records.
The 2.66M Peak Viewers it reached during the Grand Final was not only the most popular LCK match ever but also the highest Korean-language peak viewership achieved in the entire esports industry outside of the LoL Worlds events. It was also the most popular League of Legends match which took place outside the game's world championships.
It helped that it was a perfect storm of scenarios for the league, with the Grand Final match-up between T1 and Gen.G reputed as perhaps the most lucrative in the game today. Moreover, there was a lot more co-casting in 2024, with the number of channels covering this year's spring split and its final being much higher than the previous record holder, the LCK Summer 2023, which had 2.5 times fewer channels covering the action.
The LCK also continued to see a rise in involvement among Korean audiences. While this growth was fueled by the likes of YouTube, CHZZK, and AfreecaTV, it was the country's fans and viewers themselves who continued to watch the league no matter where it was live-streamed.
Moving to the next circuit that takes pride of place on the LoL competitions list and has been doing well for itself recently, the LEC also enjoyed a successful 2024. This European circuit continues to bank on teams like Karmine Corp, founded by Kamet0, and MAD Lions KOI, which was founded by Ibai.
In fact, it is the French audience, led by fans of Kamet0, who continue to be the MVPs of the circuit. They were also key to the season witnessing improvements compared to last year, which is when both he and ibai entered the scene.
With Karmine Corp coming into the fold in 2023, their huge rivalry with KOI was reintroduced. This also meant that the Kamet0 versus Ibai narrative was fueled by followers of the respective streamers, leading to a huge injection of new fans that aided in improving the viewership.
This year, there was a noticeable increase across both major metrics compared to 2023, with its 80.14M HW overall being higher. Moreover, all four of the season's competitions increased their average viewership when contrasting these numbers to their iterations from last year.
CBLOL, LPL, LCS: Ups and Downs of Leagues with Potential
For the CBLOL, it was a banner year, led by the new rules allowing community streamers that empowered new and old Brazilian fans to follow the action via their favorite content creators. Mainly, the re-emergence of Baiano as a community caster in 2024 helped produce peak and average viewerships the league had never seen before.
The series' improvement thanks to the availability of co-casting was so solid that both 2024 splits ended among its four most popular events ever. Moreover, two of the circuit's three most-watched competitions came this year, led by the performances of a trio of teams: Vivo Keyd Stars, paiN Gaming, and LOUD.
CBLOL's growth also helped it become the third-most-popular regional circuit in League of Legends behind the tearaway LCK and the steadily growing LEC. It also outperformed the quickly growing VCS and the faltering LCS series, with more to come next year.
Speaking of the LCS, 2024 represented bottom-of-the-barrel stuff for the once mighty circuit. Despite witnessing a split-on-split rise within the same season for the first time in four years, the season cumulatively saw drops in the HW and PV numbers compared to 2023.
The myriad changes, including a new format that led to lesser watch times for the events, did help maintain a more steady audience throughout the season compared to last year. However, the series' audience reach was near all-time lows, which prompted Riot Games to bring in big changes for 2025 that involve its merger with the LLA and the CBLOL, so it remains to be seen how things go in the new season.
The LPL also enjoyed a strong 2024, with its viewership numbers even outdoing the LCS. Crucially, the league's reach continues to broaden after finally becoming globally accessible and adding a lot more options to the list of broadcasting platforms, and it witnessed rises in all three metrics cumulatively compared to last year.
Upcoming leagues
Another circuit that might not boast the big numbers of some of the bigger leagues but has as vociferous a fanbase as any also maintained its solid rise. The VCS remained stable in 2024, with its last split of the year setting a new viewership record.
The series got a substantial boost from TikTok, which accounted for over 8.8% of the total watch time after not even broadcasting any event last year. However, there is still potential for growth as the organizers look to improve community engagement and explore more new platforms.
Meanwhile, the PCS continued its improvement, aided by broadcasts from the Chinese and Japanese languages. An amalgamation of three erstwhile regions — PCS, LJL, and LCO — into a unified ecosystem to generate more interest in less prominent regions, the latter language saw a notable increase in viewership compared to the spring split, which also led to a rise in the number of unique channels.
It's mostly been another positive season for League of Legends across the board, with most of the bigger circuits seeing viewership gains. While we mentioned the entire Americas region seeing a facelift next year, it is also worth noting that a new APAC league will come into play involving all the smaller Asian leagues (LJL, PCS, VCS, LCO).
Hence, the new season will bring lots of modifications that fans will no doubt be looking forward to. With the 2024 World Championship also almost upon us, there could be more new news for fans regarding the 2025 season before we head into the off-season.
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