An Age-Old Rivalry Continues to Deliver: T1 vs Gen.G LCK Summer Finals breaks Viewership Records once more

One LCK rivalry continues to deliver on the big stage- popularity-wise at least. The T1 – Gen.G battle continued last weekend with the LCK 2023 Summer Split Grand Finals. Gen.G emerged victorious with a clean 3-0 sweep. The two rosters have clashed a total of 29 times over their recorded history, tracking all the way back to 2021. T1 has historically come out on top in the matchup, taking 17 of the 28 wins, with Gen.G only taking 12 of them. However, Gen.G may be pulling ahead finally in this matchup, taking four of the last five victories in this head-to-head.

In Playoffs series, Gen.G have won the last two times as well; the LCK Summer 2023 Grand Finals (this one), and the LCK Summer 2023 Upper Bracket Semifinals. The last time T1 won the matchup, was at MSI 2023, where T1 took the series 3-2 in the Upper Bracket Quarterfinals. The last four LCK Grand Finals came down to these two teams, and many agree they represented the best of the LCK in recent times.

All of this leads to the tee-up, that being once again, the matchup between these two teams has shattered the peak viewership record.

Setting New Heights

The League of Legends Champions Korea is one of the most popular professional League of Legends leagues in the world, hosting some of the most well-known names in the industry and boasting some of the hottest talents in the world. South Korea is known for its incredible standards of excellence and the breed of players it produces are amongst the highest quality in the world. Every year, content creators, influencers, semi-professionals, and fans of the game make the yearly pilgrimage to South Korea in hopes of training and learning with the best.

This Summer Split, the viewership for the Grand Finals reached a peak of 1,528,729 viewers, according to viewership data from Esports Charts. The previous record had stood at 1,463,312 viewers from the LCK 2023 Spring Grand Finals. Moreover, this peak viewership came about from a 3-0 sweep this time, leaving the question of whether the peak viewership could have gone even higher, had the series been extended further.

Setting the Stage

This new viewership record comes just a few months before the annual League of Legends Worlds, this time set to be hosted in South Korea. As previously reported, the 2022 Worlds Championship had peaked at 5 million viewers during the Grand Finals between DRX and T1, earning League of Legends the most viewed esports title in 2022. Perhaps it is time for another record to be broken as esports continues to grow in popularity and induct itself more and more into mainstream media and culture.

Credit: Riot Games // LoL Esports