LCK Summer 2024 becomes second most popular event in series despite T1's exit

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The final split of the top regional League of Legends competition in South Korea, held at the LoL Park in Seoul, concluded on September 8 with a surprise winner. While that meant competition among teams in the event was alive and thriving, the fact that T1 did not make the Grand Final stopped it from doing event better viewership numbers.

After almost three months of action, including a break for the highly successful Esports World Cup 2024, it boiled down to Hanwha Life Esports facing perennial finalist Gen.G in the summit clash. Having already faced off in the Upper Bracket Final, the former avenged its defeat to emerge as the shock LCK Summer 2024 champion with a hard-fought 3:2 win, pocketing $144,570 and a place in the 2024 World Championship.

HLE jungler Peanut also set a record for winning LCK titles with the most different teams at five — ROX Tigers (2016 Summer), SKT T1 (2017 Spring), Kingzone DragonX (2018 Spring), Gen.G (2022 Summer to 2023 Summer), and Hanwha Life Esports (2024 Summer).

  Hanwha Life Esports won its first LCK title after shocking T1 and Gen.G (Image via Hanwha Life Esports on X)  

In what popular LoL caster Caedrel described as the 'best LCK Finals I've ever watched,' Hanwha Life Esports not only clinched its first domestic crown but also crushed Gen.G's 'Golden Road' dreams. For those not in the know, Golden Road refers to the honor bestowed upon a side that wins the Spring, MSI, Summer, and Worlds competitions in the same year.

No team has achieved it yet, although Gen.G gave it a great go by winning the year's first split and then claiming the Mid-Season Invitational 2024. The summer event loss also ended Gen.G's two-year reign atop the domestic league, with its last non-winning split coming at the LCK Spring 2022, where the side lost to bitter rivals T1 in the Grand Final.

  LCK Summer 2024 – basic viewership stats and most popular matches   

Speaking of T1, the reigning world champion is in danger of missing out on defending its crown after exiting the summer league with a loss to Hanwha Life Esports in the Lower Bracket Final. It will have one final chance of making it to the season finale — to be held at multiple venues across Europe from September 25 to November 2 — during the LCK Regional Finals 2024, where the top two will enter the Worlds 2024 Swiss Stage.

Amid all the drama and surprise results, the LCK Summer 2024 registered a massive 1.6M Peak Viewers during the Grand Final, making it the second most popular event in the series. It also recorded around 89M Hours Watched, putting it second on the all-time LCK list, and 328.7K Average Viewers over 270 hours of airtime.

Despite not making the summit clash, T1's popularity could be seen in the fact that it had four entries in the five most popular matches list. There wasn't much change in the list of most popular teams, but Hanwha Life Esports' dream run broke the T1-Gen.G top-two hegemony.

As with recent events, the likes of Caedrel and Phonics1 have been important to the success of the LCK, emerging as some of the most successful streamers to cover it. Combined with the might of T1 and Gen.G, who are crucial to the high audience reach of the series, they have been able to help recent events reach viewership figures that have the potential to rival the year's second-most important event, the MSI.

Moreover, outside Worlds and MSI tournaments, the Grand Final between Hanwha Life Esports and Gen.G ended as the third-most-popular match in LoL history. The leader also comes from the LCK, with the Spring 2024 summit clash between T1 and Gen.G reaching 2.66M PV, with the top 20 most popular games from the series all including T1 apart from the recent clash between Gen.G and HLE.

  Most popular iterations of the LCK series so far   

As mentioned, the LCK Summer 2024 became one of the most successful LCK events by HW and PV. The leader on both these tables remains the LCK Spring 2024, which broke several records en route to almost hitting 100M HW, and it remains the most-watched League of Legends tournament ever outside the Worlds events.

The top Korean league in the game continues to surprise the community thanks to the passion of its fans, and while the summer split could not maintain the run of higher viewership records with each successive tournament, it has preserved the high standards set. Moreover, the fact that there was potential for a higher viewership reach had T1 and Gen.G met in the Grand Final shows how vital the two sides remain to the series.

If Faker & Co can get through the LCK Regional Finals and enter the 2024 Worlds, the two sides could meet and create more magic. Until then, fans can marvel at the fairytale story that was Hanwha Life Esports and look forward to Korean teams at the mega event as the country looks to continue its recent dominance of global championships.