LCK Spring Tournament suffers from a decline in viewership after resorting to delayed broadcast amid continued DDoS attacks.
As League of Legends‘ most competitive pro tournament, South Korea’s LCK garners audiences worldwide. Beyond hosting some of the most prolific teams and rosters in LoL’s entire history, LCK is also home to undisputedly the “GOAT” player, Faker.
However, trouble hit paradise after LCK experienced persistent DDoS attacks, resulting in ping spikes and compromised game integrity. The first instance of a prolonged in-game interruption was in DRX vs. DK, with a technical pause spanning over 40 minutes.
As the hacking issue is still unresolved, the organization opted to delay its broadcast and refund tickets of live viewers in the LoL Park in Seoul. This decision unfortunately snowballed the issue for LCK, as the league saw a decline in viewership in the delayed broadcast.
LCK fans are uninterested in pre-recorded matches
Despite the league’s unparalleled charm with its viewers, LCK failed to attract viewers with its pre-recorded broadcasts. According to an Esports statistical report, the league recorded its lowest viewership in the tournament so far, one week into the broadcast shift.
Thankfully, LCK also had its ace on the table, as fan-favorite T1 played two matches on the league’s fifth-week schedule, which raked in a sizeable audience, albeit lower than the usual T1 crowd.
Despite the decline in viewership, LCK still dominates the charts of the most-watched Esports events, even outnumbering the audience size of the VCT Americas Kickoff semifinals.
While the root cause of the DDoS attacks remains up for investigation, some LoL players in South Korea theorize that the hacking stems from the Riot Games client migration early in the 2024 season. Some LoL players in the region had to resort to playing the game on a foreign server to avoid ping spikes amid “unplayable” solo queues.”
As of LCK’s upcoming Week 6 games, the tournament will still hold delayed broadcasts on the organization’s Twitch channel.