HUYA Secures Broadcasting Rights to LCK Matches Until 2022

Huya will represent the LCK in all negotiations for the League’s Chinese streams till 2022. The live-streaming company will hire casters and streamers to create content for the LCK channels.

Huya will arrange streamers and influencers to actively participate in the official events and deepen the partnerships with official programs in the next three years. For broadcasting technology, Huya will be dedicated to improving the live streaming quality and experience.

– Hongliang Gao, Vice President of HUYA.

HUYA Gets Exclusive Broadcasting Rights to LCK for Three Years

Image via Huya

HUYA’s three-year exclusive LCK broadcast deal enhances the company’s streaming presence in the various League of Legends championships.

HUYA also owns the exclusive Chinese streaming rights for League of Legends Pro League (LPL), League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), the League of Legends European Championship (LEC), and the League of Legends Master Series (LMS).

The streaming titan was also the exclusive streaming platform for LCK matches in China in 2018. Riot Games took over LCK broadcasting rights from South Korea cable channel OGN and Spotv for 2019.

HUYA has 144 million active users and 4.9 million paying users according to its Q2 financial report. HUYA will release its 2019 Q3 report on November 12, 2019.

How Does The HUYA-Riot Game Deal Affect LCK Fans?

LCK 2018 Spring Final | Takanori Yoshida

LCK fans will see significant changes to the production quality (Riot Games) and the streaming platform. HUYA has considerable experience providing value for its paying users. With a higher ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), HUYA is one of the most successful live-streaming platforms in China.

HUYA has not revealed any details of its plans for the LCK at the time of writing.

How Does HUA Plan to Leverage This Deal to Their Benefit?

HUYA’s three-year deal for LCK broadcast allows the live-streaming company to gain a significant foothold in the esports industry. Already one of the most prominent players in China, HUYA has made no qualms of its global aspirations.

HUYA plans to create LCK-based content with streamers, casters, and various influencers. The matches and this additional content would provide an immense value for viewers to move to the HUYA platform. HUYA has plans to improve its broadcasting technology and enhance the viewing experience.

The live-streaming platform also has streaming partnerships with esports teams Liquid and Griffin. HUYA recently signed a joint venture with MTG-owned ESL. The joint venture would provide HUYA access to western markets and also saw HUYA invest $30 million for a minority stake in ESL.

Huya: Setting Sights on the West

Over the past few months, HUYA has entered a strategic partnership with several esports teams outside of China.

They signed deals with North American organization Team Liquid and Korean Team Griffin. Besides their connections with esports teams, HUYA also bought a minority stake in MTG-owned ESL. This mutually beneficial partnership would allow HUYA access to the western live-streaming industry.

Exclusive broadcast rights such as the one with Riot Games’ LCK would help HUYA increase their platform’s reach.

The live-streaming industry is fast becoming a three-way battleground between Twitch, Mixer, and HUYA. While Twitch and Mixer dominate the western markets, HUYA is slowly making inroads via exclusive partnerships and additional content.

Written by Rohan Samal