The LCS Spring 2026 was the least-watched regular season in North American League of Legends history.
Rebranding back to the LCS from the LTA initially led to positive change, with the LCS 2026 Lock-In seeing a slight increase in peak viewership from the previous year’s iteration.
However, according to Esports Charts, Spring 2026 earned 3.33 million hours watched across seven weeks, marking a 15% drop from the LTA North 2025 Split 2.
Meanwhile, the final week clash between Team Liquid and Cloud9 attracted Spring’s peak audience of just 86.6k.
LCS Spring 2026 also saw a decline in its own viewership as it progressed, with almost a quarter of the average viewers dropping out.
While local interest is waning, the LCS seems to be mostly struggling for international viewership. Portuguese-speaking viewership, mostly from Brazil, dropped by 75% compared to the LTA North last year.
The peak for the league came nine years ago, as the LCS Spring 2017 peaked at almost 650k viewers.
There’s Still Hope for the LCS
Despite the regular season struggles, the LCS Spring Playoffs have performed relatively well so far.
The Playoffs have not yet concluded, but have already seen a significant 30% increase in peak viewership from the LTA North Split 2 2025 Playoffs.
The five-game series between Cloud9 and FlyQuest in the opening round saw a peak audience of 158k.
And that number could inflate significantly with popular streamer Nicholas ‘Jynxzi’ Stewart revealing he wants to co-stream the LCS finals.
Over 900k viewers watched Jynxi’s content creator LoL tournament, making it the fourth most-watched LoL event in 2026.
What do you think Riot can do to return people’s interest in the LCS? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord.
Popular streamer and Shopify Rebellion co-owner Charles Christopher ‘MoistCr1TiKaL’ White Jr. says the LCS needs more content creators.
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