LoL Worlds 2025 Peaks at 6.7M Viewers, slightly below 2024 peak

The League of Legends World Championship (LoL Worlds) 2025 delivered one of the most-watched esports spectacles in history, as T1 and KT Rolster faced off in the greatest Telecom War in history. According to esports data platform Esports Charts, the deciding game 5 saw over 6.7 million viewers (excluding Chinese numbers), a slight decrease from the previous 6.8 million viewership record seen in the previous Worlds final between T1 and BLG.

Nonetheless, the Telecom War final has become the second most-viewed esports event ever, further showing that LoL Esports is performing strong from a viewer perspective and a clear increase compared to when Worlds last came back to China in 2021, which was around 4 million peak viewers (although Riot had released numbers up to 73 million on that occasion, including Chinese viewership).

T1 was once again the key driver to viewership at LoL Worlds 2025 

For Faker and T1, the night couldn’t have ended more perfectly. The organization lifted their sixth Summoner’s Cup, with Oner, Faker, Gumayusi, and Keria becoming three consecutive world champions, the first ever three-peat in LoL history.

T1’s popularity is undeniable in this era as the Korean organization was featured in all four most-watched series of the tournament. The only outlier was the semifinal series between KT Rolster and Gen.G, which saw the former make the incredible upset and gather 3.124 million peak viewers on that day, according to Esports Charts.

THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME. pic.twitter.com/vyMRgYZtuS

— LoL Esports (@lolesports) November 10, 2025

Average viewership decreased compared to the previous edition (from 1.7 million to 1.5 million), likely due to the shorter play-in stage, but more importantly, the non-optimal scheduling for Western fans. As a result, the total watch time decreased by nearly a third, with 133 million hours this year compared to the 190 million from the previous one. 

Korea and Vietnam Lead Worlds 2025 Viewership

With two Korean teams in the final and the great Telecom War storyline, it’s not surprising to see Korean-language broadcasts lead the viewership numbers, with over 2 million peak viewers, the first time in League of Legends esports history. Vietnam continues to show its love for LoL Esports, having accounted for over 1.2 million concurrent viewers, confirming that LoL Esports is growing steadily in Southeast Asia.

In comparison, English-language streams saw an 8.3% decline year-over-year, with Spanish viewership also dipping quite heavily, again caused by the shifting time zones.

YouTube is overpowering all the other streaming platforms 

Worlds 2025 numbers are also a clear indication that YouTube has become the go-to streaming platform for watching the games. Unlike Twitch, YouTube allows playback, a key feature that can be helpful for those who want to rewatch specific moments. This year, the platform drew 3.77 million live viewers, the highest number ever seen. Korean’s CHZZK has also performed well, hitting 540,000 concurrent viewers. TikTok has also doubled its previous record seen at MSI 2025, reaching over 430,000 peak viewers.