Weekday LCS Gamedays: Let's Talk About It
Will the 9-5 workday significantly impact regular LCS viewership?
Editor’s Note: This is an offseason reflection post. We’ll return to our regular format once the regular season returns.
Hey there Scuttlers,
LoL Esports has unveiled its broadcast roadmap for the next competitive season of League of Legends (and Valorant, if you’re into that). Schedules for many of the major regions shifted around, including the LCS, which will now have gamedays on Thursday and Fridays at 12 pm PT / 3 pm ET. You can read the full details behind the decision and how the team made it here, but in short, the LoL Esports team concluded based on audience surveys that viewership could be positively impacted by the new schedule. In their eyes, the average LCS viewer should be able to watch more games they care about on a weekday versus a weekend.
Responses to the news have been mixed, but fairly negative. Some have pointed out how the LCS’s new native timeslots are inherently subpar for viewership, which is demonstrated by how other traditional media prioritize key broadcasts on week nights and weekends afternoons. Others (which make up the predominant sentiment) are urging the LCS to push back start times. Some have even claimed that LA-based fans will have a harder time filling the stands for live games with the new timing - something that the LCS has struggled with post-COVID.
There are also claims that the LCS made this decision by their own hand without the top-down influence of the larger LoL Esports leadership. This, allegedly, is in an attempt to stop the slowly-slipping viewership the league has witnessed over the past few years. At the core of their decision, the LCS team believes that while admittedly unpopular, the majority of LCS viewers consume content during the middle of the day, and this move is sound based on viewer data and trends. In essence, this is a huge bet on the LCS’s understanding of its core viewership - one that will lead to a league revival or deliver a critical blow to its audiences.
So who is the average LCS viewer? Well, let’s start by looking at who consumers esports generally. The majority of esports consumers are between the ages of 18 and 44, with the largest segment being those ages 18 and 34. Riot Games has not released public data on their player base, but it’s fairly safe to assume that the majority of their viewership also falls into this range, meaning that the majority of their audience is also of age to either be studying or working fulltime. Considering matches start at 12 pm PT moving forward, that means the average worker will consistently miss between 2-5 hours of gameplay based on their time zone. With some rough napkin math, someone working on the West Coast could miss about 3-4 matches before clocking out of work for the day.
That sucks.
Especially for the past few years, I’ve enjoyed day-long LCS binges over the weekend, especially the benefit of being able to watch games with others throughout the day. Discord chats fill with live updates, my Twitter feed is ripe with memes and hot takes, and I’m able to dedicate a block of time just to the LCS without compromises. This new schedule strips away opportunities like this, and makes it more difficult to forge interpersonal connections over the LCS in real time. Especially as the landscape has made such great strides over the past year, this feels like a step backwards.
As the LoL Esports and LCS teams begin their push to convince fans that the change is a good idea, I’ll expect (and participate in) significant hesitancy. But who knows - maybe Riot Games knows LCS fans better than we know ourselves.
Working my 9-5 job like the rest of you LCS fans,
Nick Mo.
What do you think about the schedule changes? Join the conversation on the ScuttleStack subscriber chat below.
