League of Legends NA LCS Games Will Start Earlier on Sundays

Esports viewers keeping up with the NA LCS matches each week will be able to watch the games a bit [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

League of Legends NA LCS

Esports viewers keeping up with the NA LCS matches each week will be able to watch the games a bit earlier on Sundays thanks to a new start time.

Starting with the fifth week of League of Legends games, the NA matches will start at 12 p.m. PT, according to Riot Games' Chris "RiotChopper" Hopper. The Rioter announced the change in a "Quick Hits" post, a new series of updates that deal with the competitive side of League of Legends much like Riot Meddler's Gameplay Thoughts posts deal with gameplay and balance.

"Due to your feedback, we'll be moving up the NA LCS start time to earlier on Sundays starting Week 5." RiotChopper said.

The NA LCS games currently start at 2 p.m. PT on both Saturday and Sunday, the Sunday time a decision rooted in being consistent with the start time on Saturday despite there not being any overlap between the EU and NA games on Sundays. RiotChopper said data that's come in since the start of the season has shown that moving the start time of Sunday's games is the right move to accommodate more viewers.

"After reviewing the amount of community feedback from EU and East Coast viewers and the audience data showing viewership fading for the late Sunday games, we decided that it was worth the potential confusion to gain the additional audience that should come with an earlier start time," RiotChopper said. "We noticed that the drop-off in viewership was more pronounced on Sunday than on Saturday; as many community members have mentioned, most fans can stay up later on Saturdays because they don't have school or work the next day but don't have the same luxury on Sundays. So, we'll be starting earlier."

As for the possibility of the time change reverting back to the games' current start time, RiotChopper said that the new schedule will persist throughout the "foreseeable future (meaning throughout the 2018 season)." The changes will start on Week 5 and not Week 4, so expect to tune into the NA LCS games during the usual time on Saturday and Sunday with next week being the start of the changes.

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