LPL falls into a “red alarm”, the cause is from LCK

Perhaps it has never been in history since the tournament was officially launched and developed, LPL has been in the current situation. And perhaps, it has been a long time, when it comes to LPL, one cannot find a face that can make guarantee for the attraction and competitiveness of the tournament. In particular, after a series of official names say goodbye (maybe temporary) with a professional environment, LPL really “touches the bottom”. In addition, the teams that “familiar with the names” with the audience also played not really as good as the tournament.

Recently, according to statistics from LPL media, the view of the matches at LPL has been plummeted, up to about 50%. Even this ratio also applies to the matches with the presence of famous teams such as LNG Esports or Bilibili Gaming. Statistics are based on the Bilibili platform – one of the largest live broadcast platforms in the billion people. The average number of views in the spring of 2023 is 710,000, but in the spring of 2024, only an average of 310,000 views.

Explaining this, first, it is because … T1 and LCK. The complete overwhelming T1 before the LPL representatives made the audience the region extremely disappointed. Granted, T1 has the passive “LPL's Slayer”, but the 4 representatives that only won 1 game against T1 is unacceptable. Not to mention, the T1 of the summer of 2023 is extremely volatile and very ups and downs, while JDG is showing the dominance in every tournament they attend.

Next is Gen.G – defending champion LCK. Perhaps everyone remembers, the media crisis caused by Gen.G causes areas to sink into conflicts. And the prohibition of the gene.g in the match against T1 as soon as the opening season could cause many LCK viewers to leave the broadcasting platforms of China. At the same time, the fans at LPL are not interested in watching the regional tournaments anymore, when compared to the quality, it is obviously not equal to LCK.

In addition, the most important factor as mentioned above: LPL no more “traffic players”. Theshy and Tarzan temporarily rested, the number of scout fans fluctuated after the scandal with Edward Gaming, Uzi and Doinb left the tournament and Rookie, or Xiaohu had never been strong enough to pull the view like famous colleagues. This is the intrinsic issue of LPL and it will be difficult for them to be able to overcome it overnight.

LPL is in a state of “red alarm” and directly affects the development of the tournament. The organizers also tried to find ways, but it seems that no measures are really positive until now.