This is the most-watched region in League of Legends 2025 so far

League of Legends’ 2025 esports season kicked off in January and the viewership has revealed which region is the most popular with fans.

The LCK Season Opening event kicked off the action this year. Now, following last weekend’s LEC and NLC Winter Grand Finals, all regions have concluded their season kickoff tournaments and determined their contestant for the First Stand Tournament.

With the game’s first international event of the year approaching, Esports Insider is looking at the most-watched LoL regions in 2025 so far.

According to esports data platform Esports Charts, the eighth most popular region was China with the LPL 2025 Split 1. Running from January 12th until March 1st, the league featured 16 teams, including Bilibili Gaming and Ninjas in Pyjamas.

Esports Charts reported 189,861 peak viewers during the Grand Final between event winner Top Esports and runner-up Anyone’s Legend.

However, the Esports Charts does not track viewership data of Chinese broadcasting platforms, which is where the majority of LPL’s audience tunes in.

In seventh place is the LTA South Split 1. Introduced by Riot last year, the Southern Conference of the newly introduced League of Legends Championship of the Americas (LTA) represents the former CBLOL through eight South American teams.

Held between January 25th and February 9th, the league saw 254,464 peak viewers during the Lower Bracket Final between LOUD and paiN Gaming.

Interestingly, LTA South’s Northern counterpart did not make it among the top 8 most-watched regions so far. Its Day 1 series between FlyQuest and Shopify Rebellion peaked at 149,876 viewers.

LoL’s Pacific league, the LCP, ranks sixth among the game’s most popular regions of the year. Its first Split saw eight teams compete from January 17th to February 23rd.

Surprisingly, the region reached its 189, 861 viewership peak during the Round 3 Upper Bracket match between CTBC Flying Oyster (CFO) and Vikings Esports.

Next up is the 2025 LCK Season Opening event, which took place on January 10th. Celebrating a new year of LoL competition in the South Korean region, the event invited LCK players from each in-game lane to form teams and face off in a series of showmatches.

Team MID versus Team BOT drew in 284,750 fans during their Semifinals match.

Slightly above the LCK showmatch tournament sits the LTA 2025 Cross-Conference. From February 15th-23rd, the newly-introduced event featured the top four teams emerging from the LTA North and South Split 1.

The elimination match of Brazilian organisation LOUD against North American opponent Cloud9 recorded 291,301 peak viewers.

The arguably most impressive viewership performance so far comes from the Northern LoL Championship, which took place from January 15th until March 2nd. Despite being a tier-2 tournament without qualification to First Stand, 360,545 fans tuned into the Grand Final of the NLC Winter 2025.

The surging popularity of the NLC is most likely thanks to LoL streamer MarcRobert ‘Caedrel’ Lamont, whose team Los Ratones secured first place against NORD Esports. With 185,209 peak viewers, Caedrel’s co-stream was responsible for more than half of the league’s audience record.

Setting itself apart from the previous of the regions, the LEC Winter 2025 recorded 801,369 peak viewers during its Grand Final last weekend.

Although the European league kicked off on January 18th with a viewership decline, the impressive run of French team Karmine Corp resulted in notable support from the French audience.

Throughout the tournament, Karmine Corp faced G2 Esports three times, eventually securing a decisive 3-0 victory in the Grand Final against the LoL veteran. The success story was co-streamed by Caedrel as well as KC co-owner Kamel ‘Kameto‘ Kebir, once again highlighting the importance of co-streaming among current audience trends.

However, the most-watched LoL region of the season by far was South Korea with the LCK Cup 2025. The league ran from January 15th to February 23rd, featuring 10 teams, such as 2024 World Champion T1.

Despite the T1’s legacy, the team was eliminated during its first Playoffs match against Hanwha Life Esports. The surprising 3-2 series attracted 1.91m viewers at its peak.

Hanwha, which signed former T1 player Choi ‘Zeus’ Woo-je for the 2025 season, later won the LCK Cup against runner-up Gen.G Esports.

With the conclusion of all kickoff tournaments, CTBC Flying Oyster, Hanwha Life Esports, Karmine Corp, Team Liquid and Top Esports have qualified for the First Stand Tournament. The global competition will be held in Seoul’s LoL Park from March 10th-16th, featuring a $1m prize.