T1 wasn’t the only thing in League of Legends Champions Korea that made history over the spring. The official LCK Twitter account announced on Wednesday that the LCK 2022 Spring split was the biggest ever in terms of viewership. In fact, it blew previous numbers out of the water.
Spring 2022 was our biggest split yet! 👊
With our Finals earning 5.17 million viewers and our global channels growing 17%, it was a record-breaking season for the #LCK.
Thank you to all the fans who joined us throughout the split! 🎉 pic.twitter.com/tGruvuz013
— LCK (@LCK) April 21, 2022
In perhaps the most anticipated LCK finals match of all time, over five million concurrent users tuned in to watch T1 make history. T1 became the first-ever perfect season in the history of the league in their match against the second-seeded Gen.G. After finishing the regular season with a 18-0 record, T1 managed to win playoffs to finish a perfect 20-0. Although the series only lasted four games and looked lopsided, 5,170,000 people tuned it. This shattered the previous record which was from last season’s LCK 2021 summer finals between DWG KIA and T1. That final only had 3,500,000 people watching. This season had nearly 2,000,000 more people watch.
But it wasn’t just the playoffs and finals that attracted more people to tune into Korea’s top League of Legends professional league. Over the course of the season, the LCK saw their average peak viewership numbers skyrocket. The average peak concurrent viewers for LCK games in spring 2022 reached 890,000. This is a 25% growth from the LCK 2021 summer split. It also is a 42% increase from the LCK 2021 spring split. Simply put, the LCK is growing in viewership at a massive rate.
And it’s not just inside Korea, either. The global reach has also grown. Just from the summer of 2021 to the spring of 2022, the amount of average peak viewership on the English broadcast increased by nearly 10,000 viewers. Also in China, the number is nearly 100,000 higher. Overall across all regions outside of Korea, there has been a 17% growth in the global average peak viewership.
This season does have the outlier of T1 chasing history so it will be interesting if the numbers continue to grow heading into the LCK 2022 summer split. The next time T1 will be competing is at the Mid-Season Invitational as they attempt to extend their perfect season on the international stage.
