LCS only seventh most popular League tournament of Summer 2022

Statistics website Esports Charts has revealed that the LCS has only the seventh-highest peak viewership in the world of League of Legends in the current split. But is there more to the story?

The viewership debate for Western League of Legends rages on. Last month, a report from statistics website Esports Charts showed that the summer split was seeing unusually low starting viewership for both the LEC and the LCS. And while such drops can be explained to a certain extent, they’re still not something that can be ignored.

But unfortunately for the LCS, the troubles didn’t stop there. A new report from ESCharts has confirmed that the North American competition is only the seventh-most popular ongoing league in the game. Its peak viewership falls behind that of the CBLoL, VCS, and even two of the European Regional Leagues, which are classed as tier-two tournaments.

EsportsCharts data also does not account for Chinese viewership — and with the LCS only beating the LPL in the top eight, it’s likely that the inclusion of Chinese viewership stats would see the LCS pushed even further down the list.

Looking beyond the numbers

Now, these statistics are definitely worrying, but it’s important to look at them in context.

The statistics used by ESCharts to form this list are the peak viewership figures from each tournament. This just means the highest number of viewers that a broadcast has reached at a given point — they could have held that peak viewership for thirty seconds or five hours, it doesn’t matter.

One important number to look at concurrently with these statistics is ACV, or average concurrent viewers. This gives a more accurate impression of how popular a tournament actually is outside of its few pinnacle matches of the split.

When you look at the mentioned tournaments by ACV, rather than by peak viewership, you get a much different story. While the LEC and LCK still top the charts, the LVP and LFL are no longer overtaking the LCS – in fact, they’re averaging just over half its total viewership.

The VCS also drops significantly down in terms of viewer numbers. And if you don’t factor in regional budget, it’s hardly surprising that the CBLoL has higher viewership numbers than the LCS — Brazilian esports fans are known to be some of the most passionate in the world.

It’s important to note that the LCS is not completely off the hook when it comes to viewership, though. Its ACV is down over 40,000 when compared to Summer 2021 (125,248), which set a record for the lowest peak viewership in the history of the competition at 364,328.