The LCK Challengers League kicked off its 2024 chapter on January 15 with the Spring Split at the WDG eSports Studio in Seoul. In a positive sign for Riot Games, despite the recent 2023 World Championship creating records, fans' appetite didn't seem to have been whetted, as the event reached a new popularity record within the series over the first few matches.
This competition among the developmental sides of top League of Legends sides in South Korea carries a prize pool of $60.9K. It is played in two phases — Group Stage and Playoffs — with the top six advancing to the latter. Moreover, the top two from the former get a bye into the Upper Bracket Semifinals, with all knockout games being played in the single elimination bracket and a best-of-five format.
Eight of the ten teams were in action on Day 1 of the Group Stage, with KT Rolster Challengers, FearX Youth, HLE Challengers, Nongshim Academy winning their matches. However, the game that reached a series-high was the first one on the second day between T1 Esports Academy and Freecs Challengers at a whopping 159K Peak Viewers.
This was 315% higher than the previous record holder, the LCK CL Summer 2023, showing just how sought-after this particular edition was heading into the new year. In fact, even the second most popular match (HLE Challengers versus Dplus Challengers) surpassed the previous mark by 10% to make it quite an exciting start to the season for this regional league.
What led to the hype for the academy team's first match at the LCK CL Spring 2024 was the debut of Rekkles. The Swede's first game confirmed rumors of him playing the support role, for which he had been practicing for over a year since transitioning from ADC.
It has to be remembered that the European LoL legend was a star for Fnatic, with whom he won several titles in the LEC region. However, a world title has continued to elude him, with his form taking a dip over the past few years as well. Joining T1 and perhaps playing with the likes of Faker could rekindle his mojo while also driving an already dominant team to new heights.
Speaking of Faker, he will seen at the LCK Spring 2024 which begins on January 17 as the official top league in South Korea gets underway. This S-tier LoL event will see the ten best sides in the country duke it out for two spots at the Mid-Season Invitational 2024 and a prize pool of $282.5K. Readers can follow this competition and many othes, across disciplines, on Esports Charts.