LCK, LCS, CBLOL, and LFL Group Stage statistics — which leagues saw increase in viewership?

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The League of Legends tournament season is in full swing. Some leagues have already completed the Group Stage and are preparing for the Playoffs. Esports Charts has summed up the interim results and compared the number of viewers watching the games in LCK, LCS, LFL and other leagues.

Group Stages Intermediate Results

In LCK Spring 2023, the Group Stage finished without any surprises — T1 topped the overall standings, losing only 1 series out of 18. Gen.G Esports, its main rival, was in second place. As a reminder, these teams played twice in the 2022 regional finals — T1 won in the Spring and Gen.G won in the Summer.

T1 roster at LCK Spring 2023 / Photo: twitter.com/LCK

In LCS Spring 2023, Cloud9, FlyQuest, 100Thieves, and CLG had the best Group Stage, advancing to the upper bracket of the Playoffs. As for TSM and Team Liquid, their season was disappointing: they finished 7th and 8th in the overall standings and didn't make it to the final round. The last time Team Liquid had such a poor result was in the Spring of 2020.

The CBLOL Split 1 2023 Group Stage was very tense: paiN Gaming took first place in the overall standings, while LOUD and Los Grandes scored the same number of points, losing to the leader only in head-to-head encounters.

The LFL Spring 2023 Group Stage deserves special attention — the main surprise of the regional league was the unsuccessful performance of Karmine Corp. The team of French streamer Kamet0 took the second-to-last place in the Group and didn't qualify for the Playoffs of the Split. This happened despite the fact that the team won European Masters three times in its history.

Intermediate Viewership Statistics

LFL is a competitor to the leagues of MSI/Worlds circuit by viewership

The LCK Spring 2023 Group Stage drew more than 720.7K Peak Viewers, slightly more than the similar stage of LCK Summer 2022 (690.6K PV). But in terms of Average Viewers, the Spring Split lagged behind the previous one — 197.4K AV vs. 229K AV. The situation is similar to the Brazilian league CBLOL, which caught up and in some metrics surpassed the North American league. As for LCS Spring 2023 itself, the Group Stage of the last Split was slightly better, both in terms of Peak and Average Viewers.  

We should note the LFL — the French regional league did not exceed its own performance in the last Split, but continues to gather much more viewers on the broadcasts than, for example, PCS Spring. At the same time, the PCS offers quota places for the MSI and Worlds, and the limit of the French league remains EMEA Masters. 

Things are not going well for TCL. Since the Turkish league stopped playing for the World Championships, the number of viewers decreased noticeably. For example, the Peak Viewers number during the Group Stage of TCL Winter 2023 was lower than on any day of the Group Stage of TCL Summer 2022. The situation with the Average Viewers number is similar.