MBC Extends LCK Finals Broadcast Through 2027 After 0.4% Debut Rating

What the report says

Riot Games has extended its broadcast agreement with MBC to carry the League of Legends Champions Korea Finals live on South Korean terrestrial television through 2027, taking the country’s premier League of Legends competition to a third consecutive year on national TV.According to Riot Games’ announcement Thursday, the two-year contract covers the 2026 and 2027 Finals. This year’s final takes place Sept. 13 at 2 p.m. KST at the KSPO Dome in Olympic Park in Seoul’s Songpa district, with the finals qualifier at the same venue the day before. MBC has again placed the match in the Sunday afternoon slot it uses for professional baseball and other major sports, and said it would assemble a commentary team aimed at viewers new to the league and trail the event through its sports news bulletins.Financial terms were not disclosed.

Neither the 2025 nor the 2026 agreement has established whether MBC pays a rights fee, co-produces the broadcast with Riot Games, or carries it on a revenue-sharing or barter basis.The renewal follows a debut broadcast that drew a modest audience.MBC’s live coverage of the 2025 final — in which Gen.G defeated Hanwha Life Esports 3-1 at Inspire Arena in Incheon on Sept. 28 — recorded a 0.4% nationwide household rating, according to Nielsen Korea figures reported by Daily Esports. Seoul and Daejeon returned 0.7%, the wider capital region 0.5%, and Busan and Gwangju 0.2%.

MBC’s own News Desk drew 5.8% the same evening, and a concurrent KBO League game on SBS drew 0.7%. The final did not feature T1, the league’s most internationally followed team, whose elimination the outlet reported had already raised concerns about the audience the broadcast would deliver.A broadcast executive who works on professional sports told the outlet that “pro baseball’s terrestrial ratings come in at around 1% to 2%, though it varies by matchup,” and said that measured against baseball, the LCK number was low. A second industry figure agreed the rating was weak against a comparably scheduled baseball game, but said it was difficult to call the result poor for esports’ first terrestrial broadcast, and that set against the migration of viewers in their teens and 20s to YouTube and other streaming services, it was a respectable showing.The rating matters less than it appears, because terrestrial television is not where the LCK’s domestic rights money sits.Riot Games announced in December that Naver and SOOP would hold exclusive Korean-language live rights to the LCK for five years beginning in 2026 and running through 2030, and said the contract terms were not being disclosed.

Key details

Daily Esports reported in January that industry estimates put the combined value at ₩150 billion KRW ($107 million USD) — ₩100 billion ($72 million) from Naver and ₩50 billion ($36 million) from SOOP — or roughly ₩30 billion ($21.5 million) a year. Neither company confirmed the estimates. A Naver representative said it could not confirm the terms, and a SOOP representative said specific amounts could not be disclosed.That estimate is not a pure rights fee. The same partnership gives both platforms Korean-language broadcast rights to Riot’s international events and to overseas leagues including the LPL and LEC, along with LCK official sponsor rights, and Naver separately took naming rights to the league’s Seoul venue, now branded CHZZK LoL Park.

Daily Esports put the estimated total above the ₩135 billion ($97 million) Tving paid for three years of KBO League rights, though below it on an annual basis.The same contract removed YouTube from Korean-language live coverage of the league. YouTube retains highlights and behind-the-scenes content, uploaded roughly 24 hours after Naver and SOOP, along with international broadcasts.That shift fragmented the LCK’s live audience rather than concentrating it. Newsis reported, citing Softcon Viewership data, that the Jan. 23 LCK Cup match between T1 and KT Rolster peaked at 233,600 concurrent viewers on Naver’s CHZZK, 232,500 on YouTube and 151,700 on SOOP.

A T1 match in February 2025, before the exclusivity took effect, drew 730,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube alone. YouTube also retained the replay audience: a highlight from the January match passed 610,000 views there, against 50,000 on CHZZK and 13,000 on SOOP.The league’s audience is also substantially not Korean. Nasmedia, the KT-owned media agency, reported in February that LCK live coverage averaged roughly 630,000 viewers per minute in 2025, with overseas viewing accounting for more than 60% of the total.