LEC suffers a drop in viewership

LEC is one of the best Riot products in League of Legends. The competition has been around for many years and despite the best-of-one match format, lots of people used to tune in to watch Europe’s best players.

But in 2023, the viewership numbers have gone down significantly. This is probably not that big of a deal for Riot Games because the company operates as a one-man show when it comes to the game’s esports side and makes its money primarily from other sources.

Esports is a relatively small part of Riot’s business model but it’s still a bit strange that the numbers are going down despite the game’s enormous player base. It’s estimated that around 150 million unique people play LoL every month. The viewership numbers of LEC pale in comparison.

The key stats

According to Escharts, LEC Spring 2022 had 270.000 average concurrent viewers, 723.000 peak viewers, and was watched for a total of 36.5 million hours. LEC Spring 2023, on the other hand, had only 219.000 average concurrent viewers, 572.000 peak viewers, and was watched for a total of 21.4 million hours.

Are people tired of LoL?

People are not bored of League of Legends. We know this because the player base is massive and there are millions of players online at any given moment. But one thing is certain: LoL is a lot more fun to play than watch.

The game is built for a very young audience, so its design is simple and predictable enough to be easy to learn by someone who doesn’t play MOBA games. But that has a downside. When you watch someone else competing in this esport, there’s not much happening.

At the highest competitive level, the game is very technical and nobody likes to take unnecessary risks. Its design does not favor highly creative approaches and encourages players to simply be as technical as possible.

By contrast, a game like Dota 2, which was recently patched again to make it even more complex, offers an average of one kill per minute in many cases and is absolutely wild.

That also means that it’s difficult to learn and that a lot of players will give up in the process. But when it comes to watching pro matches, it’s an absolute delight. And that reality is visible in the viewership numbers.

LEC needs a slightly better match format. A best-of-one encourages teams to play a bit too safe. And the game itself does the same thing. This results in stale matches where almost nothing happens for 20 minutes, and then one or two fights decide who wins. It’s a recipe for boredom.

Header: Riot Games