LoL’s hottest professional league misplaced $30 million in 3 years

The LCK, Korea’s premiere League of Legends circuit, is working at an enormous loss. They’re bleeding cash quickly, with the league dropping billions of Korean Gained 12 months over 12 months.

It’s on the level the place monetary specialists worry the LCK could collapse fully in the event that they don’t diversify their income streams, with precise profitability of the league taking an enormous dip in 2024.

Although it wasn’t precisely worthwhile in 2022 or 2023, 2024 was an enormous down 12 months and noticed the most important losses within the LCK’s historical past. And it’s onerous to think about issues have modified a lot in 2025.

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League of Legends esports proceed to interrupt viewership information, with the LCK being extra in style than ever this 12 months and seeing over 2 million concurrent viewers on the most important matches. Nonetheless, that viewership and people eyes on the league isn’t translating into revenue.

Consultants worry LCK could collapse

League of Legends went by means of huge restructuring throughout nearly each professional league going into 2025, with Riot looking for methods to make each professional league extra sustainable. And, now that the monetary reporting for the LCK is public, we’ve gotten a peek at a part of the rationale why.

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The LCK Company’s reported losses are as follows for annually:

2022: 8.1 billion KRW (~$5,621,000 USD)

2023: 13.2 billion KRW (~$9,161,000 USD)

2024: 28.5 billion KRW (~$19,780,000 USD)

This has resulted in cumulative losses totaling 42.7 billion KRW (~$29,635,000), with a lot of that being incurred in 2024 alone.

Moreover, whole gross sales went from 27.9 billion KRW (~$19,363,000 USD) in 2022 all the way in which all the way down to 11.4 billion KRW (~$7,912,000 USD) in 2024. The quantity of whole income has been lower by nearly two thirds, an enormous blow to the larger league.

It’s price mentioning that Riot has 100% possession of the LCK company, and that them reporting losses might nonetheless imply Riot’s earning money off the league. A lot of this might be attributed to the LCK softening operational prices for taking part groups by decreasing the membership charges and offering revenue sharing so the groups they’ve can keep afloat.

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That is even factoring in that the LCK hosts T1, arguably the most important esports group on this planet when it comes to reputation.

Colin Younger-Wolff/Riot Video games

Nonetheless, 2024’s huge blow might be attributed to their streaming exclusivity cope with Chinese language platform Huya falling by means of, a deal that had been financially stimulating the LCK for years.

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Additionally they held Valorant Champions Seoul within the LoL park area, incurring operational prices that had been reported on the LCK Company’s financials. There’s an opportunity that this was revenue for Riot though it technically needs to be reported as a loss.

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So, whereas it’s not just like the LCK goes to instantly collapse, specialists worry that this path isn’t sustainable.

“Though the affect of e-sports is rising, they haven’t discovered a income construction but, so the LCK groups which were investing for years are having a really tough time, and because of this, the prices that Riot Korea has to bear are rising,” reads a report from South Korean monetary publication DealSite.

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And, with viewership trending down for many leagues exterior of the LCK after Riot’s restructuring, there’s an opportunity different elements of the world have it even worse.