CBLOL

Peak 276 078

Average 111 855

LCS

Peak 271 376

Average 109 759

Most notably, the peak on CBLOL occurred during its 3-0 playoffs Grand Finals, where LOUD swept crowd favorites Pain Gaming 3-0. Had it been a 3-2 banger instead of a stomp, and had there been an English international stream, the numbers could very well have reached 400k. Riot is expected to launch official English broadcast on the 2nd half of the season.

NA pro LoL scene had been in decline for some time, marred with consecutive scandals and loss of sponsors. The only saving grace for LCS viewership had been some interesting rosters this season, with long time underdogs FlyQuest and Golden Guardians dominating and clinching the invites for MSI 2023.

However we can expect things to get worse for NA as the game itself loses popularity on home grounds, while League of Legends thrive elsewhere around the world.

Check out early 13.8 Patch Notes

League of Legends esports has gained popularity as a component of the game. Multiple teams fight in leagues in various areas to represent their country in international competitions like MSI and Worlds. The Worlds and MSI this year have new formats to enhance the tournaments.

Having said that, many wealthy people have discussed purchasing League of Legends Esports teams. Mr. Beast stated in 2022 that he was 100% purchasing an LCS team. The same holds true for xQc, who also mentions purchasing a League of Legends team. Here are his comments on it.

xQc on buying a League of Legends team

xQc recently streamed that he was interested in buying Esports teams. He specifically stated that he was looking forward to purchasing a Valorant team in the majority of his mentions.

He even came close to being duped during the hiring procedure for one. Recent accounts indicate that he has, however, eventually made it through. Jake Lucky basically made the same argument that xQc did on Twitter. This tweet drew some of the most devoted fans right away and received a lot of attention.

In addition, Jake also stated that xQc has plans to add numerous teams to his team and establish himself as a major player in the market, “with intent to one day get a French League of Legends team and a Rocket League roster as well.”

According to Jake, xQc wanted to purchase an LFL team in order to support a French League of Legends side. The local French league, or LFL, is a component of the LEC’s ERL structure. It has a devoted fan group and is considerably less costly than the big leagues. As he builds the team’s identity, investing in that league can be excellent for a new Esports team and financially.

Fans are extremely optimistic and hopeful about xQc’s entry into the scene after observing other big name’s ascent in the Esports industry. Hopefully, as xQc talks about this more, we will find out more information in the near future.

NA LCS recovered from a rough and rowdy start

• Peak viewers: 178,814
• Average viewers: 109,512

The loss of a major sponsor (FTX’s bankruptcy), controversial scheduling, and other personnel dramas at the very beginning of the season threatened an already failing LCS. Many expected the region to dip heavily in numbers or just straight up implodes.

But LCS organizers stepped up their game, listened to community’s feedback last minute and adjusted the schedules accordingly. Now although the times are still not preferable for native NA viewers, the bump in European viewership (the original intent of the new scheduling) more than made up for the loss.

On top of that, this season’s NA teams are a lot more fascinating to follow, with FlyQuest’s juggernaut lineup, Doublelift’s one last ride on 100Thieves and Team Liquid’s Korean NA roster being the biggest draws.

2022’s average was 123k, but this included playoffs and 2023 playoffs certainly will raise the numbers up to par.

EU LEC’s new format proved to be very effective

• Peak viewers: 486,661
• Average viewers: 282,297

The LEC has decided to go with a completely different format this year, making the league more like a tournament instead of same old round-robin group stage. The bottom teams get eliminated earlier and got to play fewer matches. This meant more stakes for the teams and fewer low-quality matches for the viewers, both revitalizing a stale decade-old formula that had no relegation or promotion at stakes.

Rogue’s rebranding as KOI also proved to be a major viewership draw, with KOI’s legions of Spanish fans propelling the team’s matches to the top of the charts.

2022’s average for LEC was 270k, so even without playoffs the viewership has already comfortably surpassed last year’s.

Esports League of Legends Season 2023 began a while ago. All of the main leagues, including the LEC, LPL, LCK, and LCS, are in the midst of their first split of the year. Some drops will be handed out for watching games when the new esports year begins.

Drops are free rewards offered to fans in exchange for watching esports games. As a result, Riot has chosen to share some updates on drops in 2023.

Drops can be bonuses such as special emotes and icons won for certain events that occur throughout the broadcast. Although you may not receive drops for several days or receive several ones in a day because everything is random and can happen at any time. As a result, drops will be distributed at random and will have a higher probability in scenarios such as:

• Pentakills
• Stolen Objectives
• Other Moments

How to receive LoL Esports Drops?

You must accomplish the following to obtain drops.

• Visit LoLEsports.com
• Log in using a Riot ID linked to your League of Legends account
• On the LoL Esports website, you may watch live broadcasts

A green tick on the live broadcasts indicates whether or not drops are enabled and whether or not you will get them. The drops vary in rarity and may be accessible in varying quantities. It is perfectly typical for some players to receive drops while others do not. Furthermore, certain drops have several rarities, allowing players to get numerous drops at the same time.

When you receive a drop, you will be given a card with instructions on how to redeem it. In-game awards will be provided to your account within 24 hours, and if you win things, Riot Support will contact you within 30 days to arrange delivery. If you want to see if you received any drops, log in to your Riot ID and browse to the Rewards page to see if you did.

Most large regions, such as the LCS, should have drops activated by now. But to be sure, check the social media profiles of the various leagues. Drops are currently only available in Riot Regions.

More details may be found in the official LoL Esports post.

Tweets from esports journalist MonteCristo:

Riot has filed a motion to get out of the partnership deal

Riot partnered up with FTX on August 21st, 2021 in what was meant to be a 7-year sponsorship for the NA LCS. It remains unclear how much they received in 2021, but Riot has only received 6.25 million dollars in the first half of 2022 when FTX – the third largest crypto exchange – filed for chapter 11 on 11/11.

The company’s rapid downfall started only 2 days prior when a finance report published by CoinDesk revealed the exchange’s shady relationship with Alameda Research, both owned by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. Almost immediately afterwards, Binance (the largest crypto exchange) quickly announced the sales of all its FTX’s native block-chain token FTT and withdrew a rescue bail-out.

The ensuing mass exodus from the exchange left FTX insolvent and unable to pay back all its clients. The aftermath was felt across the crypto world, and Sam Bankman-Fried was subsequently arrested in the Bahamas earlier this month.

The loss of more than $12 million a year will prove to be devastating for the LCS in the coming years, an even bigger loss than its new controversial LoL esports schedule, said MonteCristo.

Official 2023 schedule:

LoL Esports

LCS – Thursday and Friday starting at 12:00 PM PT

LEC – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday starting at 6:00 PM CET

CBLoL – Saturday & Sunday starting at 1pm BRT

LPL – Monday-Friday starting at 5pm CST and Saturday & Sunday starting at 3pm CST

LCK – New Start Times

• Match 2 on weekdays will shift 30 minutes earlier from 8:00 PM (KST) to 7:30 PM (KST)
• On the weekends, Match 1 will be moved from 5:00 PM (KST) to 3:00PM (KST), and Match 2 will be moved from 8:00 PM (KST) to 5:30 PM (KST)

VCT

VCT Americas – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday starting at 12:00 PM PT

VCT EMEA – Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday starting at 6:00 PM CET

VCT Pacific – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday starting at 6:00 PM KST

New LoL Esports schedule has LCS on from 12pm Pacific Time, Thursday and Friday

Previously LCS went on air at 3pm Pacific Time (6pm Eastern Time). New schedule effectively means LCS games will start in the middle of work hours for NA viewers, making impossible for average NA students and workers to watch the games at all.

From the announcement, Riot seemingly made the new scheduling decisions after analyzing viewership data. They found that viewers mostly followed their favorite games and teams, tune into biggest matchups of the week. Naturally that put LCS games very low on the list while LCK, LPL and LEC get prioritized. New LCS schedule is also far more convenient for European LoL fans rather than North Americans. Even Brazilian CBOL is on more convenient hours that LCS for NA.

LCS finally saw some light with many interesting rosters like 100 Thieves, FlyQuest and Team Liquid to look out for, but Riot just had to bring the hammer down onto an already struggling LCS viewership.

2023 FlyQuest LCS lineup:

• Impact (Top)
• Spica (Jungler)
• VicLa (Mid)
• Prince (Bot)
• Eyla (Supp)

This FlyQuest iteration is a huge upgrade from the previous

Former Worlds champion Impact transferred from Evil Geniuses as toplaner. Impact had an amazing season at EG and was on good form, carrying many games while still making space with his signature selfless playstyle.

Long time TSM jungler Spica bids farewell to the org after 3 years and will start for FlyQuest in 2023. Spica has long been one of the highlights of TSM season after season even as the team’s reputation and performance spirals downwards recently. A return to form for the 2021 LCS MVP is well within reach.

LCK rookie of the year VicLa made a surprise career move to NA LCS, to a less renowned team, nonetheless. ‘The monster in mid’ nearly singlehandedly carried KT Rolster to Worlds, but fell to eventual champions DRX in the finals. It’s exciting to see how a top LCK midlaner in his prime will go up against LCS’ bests like Jojopyun.

Prince is another LCK player joining LCS for the first time. Long time Liiv Sandbox botlaner will handle the same position for FlyQuest this season. LSB was looking strong in 2022 Summer season, placing 3rd in both regular season and playoffs, but unfortunately did not have enough championship points and eventually fell to DRX in the Regional Finals.

Last but not least, rising Academy star Eyla joins as support for the team. Eyla’s Liquid.Academy had been crushing it, winning 1st in both Summer and Spring seasons. The young player now looks to prove himself in the pro division with this menacing lineup.

With such a stacked squad, LCS may have a new king.

100 Thieves official announcement:

Doublelift and Bjergsen join forces once again

Undisputedly top 2 all-time NA greats, ex-TSM teammates Doublelift and Bjergsen have reunited for one last ride as bot and midlaner for 100T. Tenacity and Busio join from their Academy squad as top and support respectively, while Closer holds the jungler position from previous 2022 squad.

100 Thieves 2023 LCS lineup:

• Tenacity (Top)
• Closer (Jungle)
• Bjergsen (Mid)
• Doublelift (Bot)
• Busio (Support)

At first glance this iteration is a perfect blend between veterans and new blood and should be an upgrade from 100T’s previous roster. However, with Doublelift fresh out of retirement and Bjergsen not having a good showing on Team Liquid in 2022, this team might have a bumpy start in 2023.

100 Thieves had a decent year last season. They managed to get 2nd place in both Summer and Spring splits, culminating in a 11-14th finish at Worlds 2022 after failing to get past the group stage. We’ll have to see if this team will measure up to that and how they fare against the new Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid.

• Ssumday (Top)
• Inspired (Jungle)
• Jojopyun (Mid)
• FBI (Bot)
• Vulcan (Support)

Official tweet:

2022 was a great year for Evil Geniuses

Along with Danny and former Worlds champion Impact, EG captured their very first LCS title, defeating 100T 3-0 to secure their slot to MSI 2022. There the boys in blue again made waves as they managed to secure 3-4th place, losing 0-3 in the semis against eventual champions RNG Gaming. Not a bad result at all for a minor region.

Comes Summer split however, the team starts to run into significant difficulties and only barely managed to make Worlds after narrowly defeating Team Liquid 3-2 for NA’s 3rd and last seed. The series saw the departure of Danny from starting roster as he seemingly suffered a mental breakdown.

EG was then forced to call up Kaori from their academy roster to replace Danny as ADC for Worlds 2022. The team managed to overcome the play-ins but failed to get out of group stage and finished 11-14th. Considering that Rogue was the only Western team to get out of groups, EG has no reason to be ashamed of their performance.

However, for an organization of EG’s caliber, they always strive to do even better. Post-Worlds shuffle saw them bringing in 2 players from 100T’s 2022 lineup: Ssumday and FBI.

At a glance, both are upgrades from their 2022 Worlds roster. Both Ssumday and FBI are very mechanically skilled and have proven themselves in 100 Thieves’ jerseys. However, many fans will miss Impact’s selfless playstyle that enables his team to wrecked so much havoc in 2022.

Danny’s continued benching on the other hand has been the source of new controversy as allegations from his sister painted the org in very bad lights. Hopefully Danny will recover and makes his return some day, with or without Evil Geniuses, to reclaim the best NA ADC title.

For other 2023 LoL rosters, check out Team Liquid and Worlds champions DRX

Official Team Liquid announcement:

2 Worlds champions, 2 academy players complete Liquid’s new roster

TL’s co-CEO Steve Arhancet followed through with his promise of a different approach to roster building after the disappointment of 2022 all-star lineup. The new lineup seems to be a good blend of young blood and proven, experienced veterans, though lacking in star power.

Team Liquid Honda’s 2023 roster:

• Summit (top)
• Pyosik (jungle)
• Haeri (mid)
• Yeon (bot)
• CoreJJ (support)

Pyosik was signed fresh after his victory with DRX at Worlds 2022. Though he isn’t highly regarded individually by LoL community, Pyosik has shown to be perfectly capable to go toe-to-toe with the best Junglers from LCK and LPL and has results to back it up.

CoreJJ has been with TL for over 4 years and has been the cornerstone of every roster since. His support capacity is undisputed and was crucial in Samsung Galaxy 2017 triumph at Worlds.

Haeri and Yeon join from TL Academy to be their new mid and bot laner. The 2 rising stars are on a roll with 3 consecutive victories in 2022 Summer season, topping LCS Academy. Their mechanical skills and motivation to prove themselves will propel Liquid forward.

Summit is a proven and solid player, exactly what a team needs for their toplaner. Perhaps here is where he will find his footing and make a breakthrough.