Faker's return to T1 and analysis of their viewership without him

On the 5th of July, T1 announced on Twitter that Faker would be stepping down from the roster to recover from an arm injury. After almost a month of disappointing results, Faker returned to the active roster on the 2nd of August. How did one of the most beloved League of Legends esports professional’s return affect viewership and T1’s chances at Playoffs qualification?

While Faker was recovering, 17-year-old Poby was chosen to fill in during his leave. Poby made his LCK debut during Week 5. Unfortunately, this was a rough time for the team. During Faker’s absence, T1 went 1-7 in their matches, dropping from 3rd place in the rankings by Week 4 to 5th place by Week 8. Faker returned for the final Week 9 of the main season, and T1 were lucky enough to play one of the lower-ranked teams in the standings earning them their first win since Week 6.

T1 put up a solid performance in the early season with Faker, boasting a 6-2 record and both of their losses were against the two top-performing teams of the event so far: KT Rolster and Gen.G Esports. This was enough to solidify their placing in playoffs, but their match against SANDBOX Gaming on the 4th of August might be more representative of their chances in Playoffs. SANDBOX is currently placed behind T1 and needs to win the game to confirm their Playoffs qualification, if T1 is unable to topple SANDBOX Gaming their potential for Playoffs isn’t strong.

T1 viewership with and without Faker

According to Esports Charts teams data, T1 is one of the most popular teams in esports and holds the record, along with opponents DRX, for the highest peak concurrent viewers figure recorded in esports (excluding Chinese viewers): 5.14M concurrent viewers. Unsurprisingly, the most-watched matches of the LCK Summer 2023 so far are all T1 games.

T1’s Week 1 matches against Gen.G Esports and Hanwha Life Esports were the most popular matches of the event, with 764K and 606K PV, respectively. A testament to T1’s incredible popularity in the Korean region, of the top 20 games of the LCK Summer 2023 per Peak Viewers, only three of these top games do not feature T1.

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T1’s Week 9 game and Faker’s return mark the most popular game of the second half of the season. Since Faker’s disappearance and Poby’s debut in Week 5, viewership for the LCK Summer event has stagnated. Week 5 and Week 8 were the weakest stages for the event, both stages failed to reach the 4M Hours Watched mark. Weeks 1-4 for the event reached 5M+ Hours Watched on average; compare this to Weeks 5-8, which received 3.9M hours of watch time on average.

Peak Viewers for each match T1 played in the LCK Summer 2023, Weeks 5-9.

Peak Viewers for each match T1 played in the LCK Summer 2023, Weeks 5-9.

Faker returned to the LCK Summer 2023 on the 2nd of August and helped T1 claim their first victory in weeks. Faker returned to a Peak Viewers figure of 475K, the highest number of concurrent viewers recorded since Week 4 of the event. The most-watched matches in Faker’s absence were the Week 5 game against DRX (450K PV) and the Week 6 game against Dplus (444K PV). During Faker’s break from the league, T1 averaged 401K PV per game. Faker’s return to 475K PV marks an 18.4% increase from this average. Peak Viewers can sometimes be a volatile metric, so we can validate this claim with our Average Viewers data, which also shows a 19% increase upon Faker’s return compared to the averages for Weeks 4-8.

Although it is true that statistically T1 experienced a lower viewership than average without Faker, this is not to imply that other teams were finding success in viewership while T1 were not. T1 is still the most popular League of Legends team in the world and perhaps esports as a whole. Despite the lower-than-average concurrent viewers figures, T1’s matches remained the most-watched matches of every week for this event. No matter if with Faker or not, T1’s matches were consistently the top two most popular matches for each week.

One extreme example of this is their Week 1 game against Gen.G Esports. This game was the most popular game of the week, receiving 764K PV: 344K concurrent viewers more than Dplus vs DRX, the most popular game of Week 1 when T1’s matches are ignored. This trend continued with and without Faker. In Week 4 T1’s match received 227K more PV than the next most popular game and in Week 6 they received 205K more PV than their competition, even without Faker.

Also read: The most popular esports teams of 2022

Although Faker is one of the most recognisable names in esports, T1 did not need him to continue to dominate viewership for the LCK Summer 2023. Nevertheless, competitively their results worsened and they were unable to draw in as much viewership as they usually do with Faker on the roster. Faker’s return to T1 will surely bring a boost to viewership for the last game of the LCK Summer season, and with Playoffs right around the corner it would be a perfect Cinderella story for T1 to go on to win the whole event.

As we come into August, the Summer seasons of the leagues are coming to an end as we prepare for the playoffs. The LCK Summer 2023 Playoffs will take start on the 8th of August and finish two weeks later on the 22nd, featuring Bo5 matches and a double-elimination format. Last year, Gen.G Esports defeated T1 in the Grand Final of the tournament, and now T1 have the monster task ahead of them to push through into Playoffs and try to earn their rematch. Want to learn more about League of Legends viewership? Check out our tournaments page or the LCK Summer 2023 page directly.