Riot has just released official LoL Esports schedule for 2023 and many NA fans are already outraged.
Official 2023 schedule:
LoL Esports
LCS – Thursday and Friday starting at 12:00 PM PT
LEC – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday starting at 6:00 PM CET
CBLoL – Saturday & Sunday starting at 1pm BRT
LPL – Monday-Friday starting at 5pm CST and Saturday & Sunday starting at 3pm CST
LCK – New Start Times
- Match 2 on weekdays will shift 30 minutes earlier from 8:00 PM (KST) to 7:30 PM (KST)
- On the weekends, Match 1 will be moved from 5:00 PM (KST) to 3:00PM (KST), and Match 2 will be moved from 8:00 PM (KST) to 5:30 PM (KST)
VCT
VCT Americas – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday starting at 12:00 PM PT
VCT EMEA – Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday starting at 6:00 PM CET
VCT Pacific – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday starting at 6:00 PM KST
New LoL Esports schedule has LCS on from 12pm Pacific Time, Thursday and Friday
Previously LCS went on air at 3pm Pacific Time (6pm Eastern Time). New schedule effectively means LCS games will start in the middle of work hours for NA viewers, making impossible for average NA students and workers to watch the games at all.
From the announcement, Riot seemingly made the new scheduling decisions after analyzing viewership data. They found that viewers mostly followed their favorite games and teams, tune into biggest matchups of the week. Naturally that put LCS games very low on the list while LCK, LPL and LEC get prioritized. New LCS schedule is also far more convenient for European LoL fans rather than North Americans. Even Brazilian CBOL is on more convenient hours that LCS for NA.
LCS finally saw some light with many interesting rosters like 100 Thieves, FlyQuest and Team Liquid to look out for, but Riot just had to bring the hammer down onto an already struggling LCS viewership.
