With some domestic leagues seeing less viewership in 2022, Riot Games is set to shift the competitive League of Legends gameday schedule across multiple regions.
Riot also revealed findings regarding the viewing habits of League esports fans in its esports broadcast update posted today. Most fans, according to the post, stick to watching their favorite game regardless of which region is playing. Fans of the LCS are more likely to watch LEC games if they’re on compared to VALORANT matches, Riot claims.
It also found that the two most important priorities for viewers are to watch their favorite team and to catch the biggest matchups of the week. Burnout can be a factor, too, since Riot reported that 45 percent of viewers say they feel exhausted after watching a full day’s worth of competitive League of Legends.
With these findings in mind, Riot has made the following changes to its broadcast schedule:
- LCS games will be played Thursday and Friday starting at 2pm CT
- LEC games will be played Saturday, Sunday, and Monday starting at 10am CT
- CBLoL games will be played Saturday and Sunday starting at 10am CT
- LPL games will be played Monday to Friday starting at 5am CT and Saturday and Sunday starting at 3am CT
- LCK games have been given some new start times
- Match No. 2 on weekdays will start 30 minutes earlier, moving from 5am CT to 4:30am CT
- On the weekends, Match No. 1 will be moved from 2am CT to 12am CT, and Match No. 2 will be moved from 5am CT to 2:30am CT
Riot’s stated goal with the changes is to make the viewing experience less stressful by reducing overlapping games between regions. With the new schedule, fans should only have to choose “to watch” and not worry about “which game to watch.”
The CBLoL Split 1 begins on Jan. 21, but that is the only region with a confirmed start date so far of the five that received schedule changes today. Viewers won’t have to wait that long for entertainment, however, since the new Season Kickoff event begins on Jan. 10.