Korean League of Legends streams remain halted in China after Taiwan comment

Chinese streaming platform Huya halted broadcasts of Korea’s League of Legends (LoL) professional tournaments, weeks after a top Korean Esports team referred to Taiwan as a sovereign country.

Generation G (Gen.G) players gear up ahead of the 2023 League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) Summer finals in August. [YONHAP]

Korea’s League of Legends (LoL) professional tournaments remain suspended in China, weeks after a top Korean Esports team referred to Taiwan as a sovereign country.

Chinese video streaming platform Huya, the exclusive rights holder of League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) streams since 2018, stopped its official Chinese-language broadcasts for the first time, according to a South China Morning Post (SCMP) report on Sunday.

The LCK season kicked off at LoL Park in central Seoul earlier this month.

Though Riot Games Korea said the halt of LCK streams in China was due to the lack of a broadcast rights holder, industry insiders say it is likely retaliation against Esports team Gen. G’s reference to Taiwan as a “country.”

Gen. G received backlash from Chinese users online in December after calling Taiwan a country in a Facebook post announcing a sponsored event on the island.

The team's management, and later Gen. G Esports CEO Arnold Hur, released a statement saying the team “respected and upheld China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Their last statement, however, backpedaled to say that “Gen. G will maintain neutrality on certain political views and ideologies.”

China has maintained the “One China” principle as its official political stance, claiming Taiwan as a part of its sovereign state.

Ke “957” Changyu, a commentator for the LPL, the LoL pro bracket in China, said on his personal streaming channel that the broadcasting halt was due to the controversy surrounding Gen. G, according to the SCMP.

The Korea Times also reported that an anonymous source in China’s Esports industry confirmed that “Gen. G was a major reason for the suspension.”

Over half of Huya’s shares are owned by multimedia giant Tencent, which also owns Riot Games, the developer behind League of Legends.

The Chinese platform also owns the exclusive rights to stream the League Championship Series (LCS) and the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC), the top Esports brackets in North America and in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The streaming halt comes amid an already financially troubling time for the LCK, which has reportedly struggled to grow its business value in recent years.

A group of teams said to be affiliated with the LCK published a joint statement on the opening day of the Spring season, saying, “the LCK League Corporation has not grown the business value of the league over the past three years.”

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]