For the top professional LoL tournaments in the world, encountering issues can still happen, but with significantly less frequency compared to lower-tier regional tournaments. However, due to their status as premier LoL events attracting a massive fanbase, any incidents can lead to much more serious repercussions. A prime example occurred recently during the LCK Spring 2024 on Sunday, February 25 (Vietnam time) – a day that was expected to draw significant viewer attention because it was the weekend.
Specifically, during the match between Dplus KIA and DRX, there was a prolonged network disconnection that lasted for several hours. The incident began when a player reported poor network connectivity, forcing the match to be paused. The match resumed for a few minutes before being paused again, leading to another pause that lasted several hours. This situation also affected the subsequent match between OKSavingsBank BRION and Kwangdong Freecs. Eventually, the DK – DRX match continued with the fatigue evident among players, spectators, and match officials, with DK ultimately winning the match.
Perhaps in LCK’s history, such a prolonged situation has rarely occurred, especially due to network issues. LoL Park has long been one of the “sacred places” for LoL globally. Not to mention, not long ago, the LCK region hosted the 2023 World Championship. Therefore, this incident is truly difficult to accept. Many viewers criticized the LCK organizers right in the posts related to the incident. Moreover, it affected the players themselves and the schedule of fans who had come to watch the match.
Notably, one comment immediately referred to VCS and the case of SE’s matches being postponed in 2023: “I remember last year watching VCS, there were times they continually announced technical issues causing a certain team’s matches to be postponed for several days. They later discovered a whole match-fixing system. Should I be waiting for an explosion here?”
In reality, SE’s incident was slightly different as at that time, “technical issues” were perhaps merely a reason for the organizers to address surrounding problems with SE. As for the LCK, they truly faced serious issues, and the organizers need to resolve them urgently before other matches are also affected by these incidents.