The 2024 LCS season was the 12th, and final, season of the League Championship Series (LCS), a North American professional esports league for the video game League of Legends. The season was divided into two splits: Spring and Summer. The Spring Split ran from January 20 to March 31, 2024. For the first time since 2014, the league had eight teams competing instead of 10.
League changes
Teams
Following the 2023 season, TSM sold their LCS franchise slot to Shopify Rebellion.[1] In addition, on November 19, 2023, Golden Guardians and Evil Geniuses exited the LCS, as their third-party administrator agreement with Riot Games was terminated. With not enough time to fill the two vacancies, the league announced that they would continue with eight teams for the 2024 season.[2] The 2024 season marks the first time in a decade that the LCS had only eight teams competing in the league.[3]
Commissioner
On December 13, 2023, Riot Games has announced that Mark "MarkZ" Zimmerman would be the new commissioner for the LCS. His appointment followed the departure of Jackie Felling, who stepped down from the commissioner position in summer 2023 due to health-related complications.[4]
Spring
The Spring Split regular season ran from January 20 to March 10, 2024. The regular season followed a double round-robin tournament format, with each team playing each other twice. All matches were best-of-one. The top six teams from the regular season advanced to the playoffs, with the top four teams starting in the upper bracket, and the following two starting in the lower bracket.[5] The Spring Split Finals took place on March 31 at the Riot Games Arena in Los Angeles.[6]
The LCS will return to Saturday and Sunday broadcasts after a year of weekday broadcasts. Riot Games announced the decision to revert to the original Saturday and Sunday broadcast days in response to widespread feedback from the North American League of Legends community. The move to Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday broadcasts in the previous year faced backlash from fans, contributing to a decline in overall viewership. The previous year saw a notable decrease in LCS viewership, reaching its lowest levels in peak viewership and average viewer counts over the last six seasons.[9]