Riot recently self-scheduled the broadcast of regional tournaments to avoid overlapping tournaments, making it possible for viewers to follow all tournaments comfortably.
Most of the domestic leagues are not having a stable viewership, with the exception of the LCK and LPL – the two regions with the world’s leading League of Legends. Some people believe that domestic leagues are less attractive partly because of overlapping schedule, putting viewers in a position of having to choose 1, so tournaments in less developed regions will be disadvantaged.
Worlds still has good viewership but regional tournaments don’t
There are also times when the matches of different tournaments will follow each other on the same day, if watching all the viewers are also very tired. So Riot came up with the idea of ”spreading out” the tournaments on all days in a week.
Specifically, Riot has made the following changes to the broadcast schedule of major League of Legends tournaments globally:
LCK: The second match of the day will usually be pushed up 30 minutes earlier, ie 17:30 instead of 18:00 as before. On the weekend, the first match will be moved from 15:00 to 13:00, the second game will start at 3:30 instead of 18:00
LCS: Matches will be wrapped up in two days, Friday and Saturday from 03:00 (Vietnam time) instead of Sunday and Monday as before.
LEC: Matches will take place on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays (special two weeks) from 23:00 (push one hour earlier)
LPL: Matches from Monday to Friday will start at 18:00. Matches on Saturday and Sunday will take place from 16:00 (both two hours later).
Riot’s solution is said to be quite reasonable and optimal
On the LCK side, this area pushed up the early game time partly to avoid the matches being too late and the audience watching live will have difficulty moving home. In the opposite direction, the LPL postpones the schedule, which means that the match may last until late and affect the audience’s schedule.
According to recent information, the LEC will start on January 22 and the LCS on January 26, while the LCK and LPL have yet to announce the opening date. However, the events of League of Legends will not be empty with the replacement of a Season Kickoff tournament for All-Star Event taking place on January 10-11 next year across all nine regions. Riot acknowledged.
