The 2023 League of Legends competitive season has just kicked off, and all signs point to it being the most exciting season to date. Read everything you need to know about the broadcasting schedule, format changes in LEC, starts of LPL and LCK, new teams, and finally drastic changes in the reigning World champion team, DRX.

This competitive season of League of Legends sees teams from around the world competing in regional leagues and the Mid-Season Invitational, all leading up to the 2023 League of Legends World Championship at the end of the year. The competition sees various changes, new teams, and old rivalries all coming together. Whether you are a hardcore League of Legends fan or taking your first steps into the League of Legends esports scene, here is what you need to know. 

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League of Legends esports broadcasting schedule update

Ahead of the 2023 League of Legends esports season, Riot Games revealed many notable changes to the broadcasting schedule. As the League of Legends esports staff explained in their blog post, the previous years saw too many different regions overlapping in broadcast times, making it difficult to follow all the action. In an attempt to make it easier to follow the League of Legends esports scene, the broadcast times are now more staggered throughout the week. 

The biggest changes are to the LCS (North America) and the LEC (Europe). With the continuing downward trend of the viewership of the LCS, Riot Games changed the broadcast days from Saturday and Sunday to Thursday and Friday. 

Notably, the change in dates frees up the late-night weekend hours for Riot Games’ other popular title, Valorant, which continues to grow in popularity. Similarly, the LEC now takes place on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, in place of their usual Friday and Saturday schedule. 

Other changes include the new starting times from the LCK (Korea), which now starts earlier in the day by 30 minutes during the week, or two hours earlier during the weekend. And the LPL (China) now streams Monday to Friday at 5 PM CST(China Standard Time) and Saturday and Sunday at 3 PM CST. China is eight hours ahead of Amsterdam’s local time or fourteen hours ahead of eastern time. That means the LPL broadcast starts at 3 AM ET or 9 AM CET during weekdays or 1 AM ET or 7 AM CET during the weekend. 

League of Legends Regional Start Days

With the off-season coming to an end, all of the major League of Legends regions are starting their spring seasons. As is tradition, the first major region to kick off the 2023 League of Legends esports season is the Chinese LPL.

The LPL started strong with their first games on January 14th and 15th, featuring a stacked weekend with six best-of-three matches and a full week of games before they head into a short break for Lunar New Year. The Korean LCK starts shortly after on Wednesday the 18th, with two competitive best-of-three series each day. 

Regarding major western regions, the LEC’s first broadcast day with the new schedule is Saturday the 21st, with several heated battles taking place, starting the day with a match between two historic teams, G2 Esports and Excel. The North American counterpart starts just a few days later, with last season’s favorites 100Thieves taking on their nemesis in Cloud9. 

Format changes for the LEC (Europe)

The LEC is going through some significant changes this esports season, starting with the change in broadcast days mentioned above. In addition, during the League of Legends playoffs, Friday is also used as a broadcast day to allow for more games to take place throughout the season. However, the most major change to the 2023 Spring season of the LEC is the change to its format. With the additional broadcast day, there is just more time for games. 

Each broadcast day features five best-of-ones, two best-of-threes, or a single best-of-five series. In addition, unlike in previous years, the extra broadcast day creates space in the schedule so that all important broadcasts, such as the semifinals and finals, take place on Sundays to maximize the league’s viewership. 

New teams joining the LEC 

The 2023 LEC season has quite some shakeups, with two new teams joining the league. One of the teams is Team Heretics, who, earlier in 2022, bought the slot of team Misfits Gaming. The new team is led by veteran Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski, alongside some familiar names like Evi, Jackspektra, and Mersa. 

The other "new" team is the popular League of Legends team Rogue, who has merged with Koi, replacing the team in the LEC. Both teams make their first appearance on the opening day of the LEC on January 21st.

The crazy changes of the reigning World champion DRX

While there are many drastic roster changes to cover for the Korean League of Legends scene, the most notable of all has to be what happened to the current League of Legends world championship team, DRX. Almost the entire DRX team has left the organization while being the reigning champion. The only remaining part of the old DRX team is their support, BeryL. The other star players of DRX left the organization, with Zeka and Kingen joining the Hanwha Life Esports club organization. Jungler Pyosik left for America to become the jungler for Team Liquid, and Deft joined Damwon Kia under their new Dplus KIA banner. 

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