Historically, in the League of Legends scene, T1 has always been regarded as a guarantee for the viewership of the LCK as well as League of Legends. Regardless of who the opponent is, as long as T1 and Faker participate in a match, that game will almost certainly be among the most viewed matches of the tournament.
In fact, even in matches where Faker might not compete, if they are associated with T1 and somewhat related to Faker, those matches will also attract higher viewership than even the “top” matches. A prime example is the first match where Faker had to take a break during the recent Summer Split – the first round match between T1 and DRX in the group stage.
Of course, this is completely understandable. Faker is the “Immortal Demon King” of League of Legends in particular and esports in general. His influence is undeniable, and even Faker’s opponents must acknowledge this fact. Therefore, it is only natural for matches featuring Faker to achieve high viewership. Even if Faker is no longer the most prominent member of the team, he remains an extremely effective “view magnet”.
However, in August, T1 and Faker did not just finish second in LCK Summer 2023. Even in the viewership statistics for esports events in August, the match T1 – Gen.G ranked second behind another match. Specifically, with a viewership of 1,984,604, the match between Alter Ego and RRG in the MPL Indonesia Season 12 was the esports event with the highest viewership. The Mobile Legends match attracted around 400k more viewers compared to the T1 – Gen.G match (which had 1,528,729 views).
In several Southeast Asian and Asian countries, Mobile Legends is a highly popular game. Moreover, the match between T1 – Gen.G concluded faster than fans anticipated. Perhaps these are two of the reasons why the LCK Summer 2023 final only ranked second among the highest-viewed esports events in August 2023.