League of Legends’ most popular pro, Faker, just hit one million subscribers on YouTube following a trend of consistent growth on his channel over the past year.
While professional gamers don’t always have the same sort of social media or streaming presences that personality streamers maintain, the increasing importance that organizations have put on content creation has driven them and their players to ramp up their output.
Though the T1 player’s official YouTube channel has been active since February 2017, it started this year with just a little more than 700,000 subscribers. The influx of more than 250,000 subscribers over the past six months has been paired with an increase in his total video views on the platform as well.
With around 86 million views at the beginning of the year, his channel has grown significantly in 2020, hitting a total of over 131 million video views. His roughly 45 million video views in just about six months represent more than one-third of the total views his channel has accrued in its lifetime.
Faker’s YouTube channel netted about 231,000 subscribers in 2019, according to Social Blade. Since that point, his channel has gained more subscribers, over 280,000, in just a little over six months.
T1 CEO Joe Marsh has been closely monitoring Faker’s YouTube growth, but even he was surprised as how quickly the page has grown in the past half a year.
Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok was pulled out of solo queue by the SK Telecom organization so that a team could be formed around him in the mid lane. Ultimately they settled on Impact, bengi, Piglet, and PoohManDu to surround him and the team was unveiled in February of 2013, dubbed SK Telecom T1 2. They qualified for their first OGN at OLYMPUS Champions Spring 2013. They exceeded all expectations and placed 3rd, losing 3-1 in the semifinals to MVP Ozone but beating CJ Entus Frost 3-0 in the third-place match. Faker’s dominating performances put him in the conversation for best mid laner in the world after just one tournament.
The team was renamed to SK Telecom T1 after their sister team, SK Telecom T1 1, was disbanded. With a great first result under their belts, they attended HOT6iX Champions Summer 2013. Faker continued his fantastic play and led his team to a reverse sweep of the KT Rolster Bullets and earned them a berth at the Season 3 Korea Regional Finals. They were seeded directly into the finals and met the Bullets again, only to soundly beat them 3-1. SK Telecom qualified for the Season 3 World Championship as the final Korean seed but still came in as the favorites to win the whole tournament.
Faker crushed the competition and the team put up an impressive 15-3 record across the tournament, culminating in a one-sided final where they beat Royal Club 3-0 and became the new world champions. Faker’s brilliant play across the season earned him the title of the best player in the world by most fans and experts alike. The SK Telecom organization picked up a new sister team, ultimately named SK Telecom T1 S, so Faker’s team was renamed to SK Telecom T1 K.
“We were just talking about plans for Faker’s YouTube channel once it hit 1m followers,” he tweeted. “Didn’t think we would hit this quick. Congrats to the UDK and we @T1LoL better get to work on something special once that plaque arrives in Seoul.”
