League of Legends Champions Korea, the top professional league for Riot Games' League of Legends in South Korea, has more than doubled its average viewership in the six years since it adopted a franchise system.
Riot Games, which organizes LCK, released viewership data on the 15th for the 2026 season, which ran from April 1 to Sept. 13.
LCK's average minute audience rose 13% from a year earlier to surpass 700,000 for the first time. The metric measures the average number of viewers watching content during a given period.
The average minute audience grew 2.19 times, from 326,000 in 2021, when LCK introduced its franchise system, to 714,000 this year. Peak concurrent users for the 2026 LCK final also rose 24% from last year. Gen.G and Hanwha Life Esports met in the final for a second straight year, but the audience was considerably larger.
Concerns that an expanded roster of streaming platforms would fragment the audience did not materialize. NAVER's CHZZK and SOOP secured LCK broadcasting rights for the next five years ahead of the 2026 season. Both platforms invested heavily in a co-streaming ecosystem after acquiring the rights and widened their reach by opening broadcasts to streamers who had not previously carried LCK.
Overseas figures also continued to climb. LCK, which has expanded international coverage into English, Chinese, Vietnamese and other languages since the franchise system began, saw its overseas average minute audience rise 20% from a year earlier. Of the total 714,000, overseas viewers accounted for 504,000, or about 70.6%.
The league and its clubs widened their contact with fans across Asia, holding the LCK Cup in Hong Kong and sending Kiwoom DRX on a roadshow in Vietnam, which analysts say contributed to the gains. LCK teams also stayed competitive in international events, with Hanwha Life Esports winning the Mid-Season Invitational, helping draw broader global interest.
The single-season, single-champion format introduced last year has also taken hold, another factor behind the rise. Marquee matchups between rival teams drew more than 1 million viewers even in the regular season. In the third and fourth rounds, teams were split into the Legend and Rise groups based on performance, producing a run of matches between top sides that drew attention.
The heightened interest in the regular season carried over to major events including the LCK MSI qualifier, the play-ins and the playoffs. Viewership rose sharply for matches with more at stake.
"The average minute audience for LCK in 2026 surpassed 700,000, a record performance built on the affection and sustained interest that fans have shown," LCK Commissioner Lee Jung-hoon said. "LCK will do its best, together with our 10 teams, to achieve our goal of becoming global premium content enjoyed across generations."