Riot Games’ new Monday Night League hasn’t been too successful in terms of viewership through the first two weeks of the 2020 LCS Spring Split.
The viewership numbers on Twitch for the past two MNL broadcasts are discouraging. Yesterday, the LCS stream only had a peak viewership count of 73,000 people and its average concurrent viewership count floated at less than 46,000 for the day.
This is a huge drop from the weekend’s set of games, where the viewership numbers peaked at around 158,000 on Saturday, Feb. 1 and 150,000 on Sunday, Feb. 2. Saturday and Sunday’s concurrent viewership also trumped MNL’s, with Saturday reaching a CCV of almost 99,000 viewers and Sunday hitting around 86,000 CCV.
MNL was marketed as a marquee day for North American League fans but it’s been anything but that over the first two weeks. Some fans simply won’t watch games that late on a weekday, especially if the matchup isn’t good.
The timing is also bad for European viewers. Since the games are held late at night in North America, EU fans will have to wake up at the crack of dawn to catch some games. This has effectively isolated a huge chunk of the fan base.
NA has had to reschedule and reformat how its season is played out before. Although this new setup was interesting, Riot might need to rethink its strategy moving forward for the LCS.
Published: Feb 4, 2020 11:12 am