The 2025 League of Legends World Championship (Worlds 2025), hosted in China, has commenced with the strongest viewership start in the tournament’s history.
The opening day of the Play-In stage achieved a peak of over 2.5 million concurrent live viewers according to Esports Charts, setting a new record for both an opening day and for the Play-In stage overall.
It is important to note that this year’s Play-In stage featured a significant format change, with only two teams competing that built the perfect setup for a record-breaking match at such an early stage of Worlds. One of the teams was T1 from Korea, which arguably carries the largest fanbase in the whole League of Legends scene and is home to esports legend Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. The other team was Chinese squad Invictus Gaming, who were making a long-awaited return to the event. T1 emerged victorious from the clash.
The peak viewership figure of 2.5 million represents a substantial increase over the previous record. It surpasses the 2024 Play-In stage peak of 1.4 million viewers by nearly 75%.
Also according to Esports Charts, the viewership was centred on two major platforms, YouTube and Twitch, with YouTube reportedly nearly doubling Twitch’s viewership at its highest point. South Korean platforms CHZZK and SOOP also contributed several hundred thousand viewers to the total.
In terms of audience demographics, Korean viewers formed the largest segment, with over 840,000 tuning in at peak. The international English-speaking audience was also highly engaged, alongside other Asian viewers from regions such as Vietnam and China, who were watching on non-Chinese platforms to which Esports Charts has no data.
