First Stand 2025 hits over a million viewers as Hanwha Life Esports wins first global trophy
League of Legends' newest global event, the First Stand 2025, has ended, with South Korea continuing its dominance. However, it was not one of the usual suspects from the East Asian nation that was the winner, which, combined with the unsuitable time zone, meant it reached just over 1.1 million Peak Viewers (PV), perhaps slightly lower than what might have been expected.
The first cross-regional competition of the 2025 League of Legends esports calendar concluded at the LoL Park in Seoul on March 16, with Hanwha Life Esports emerging as the champion. The Korean Winter Split champion's Grand Final with French favourite Karmine Corp ended as the tournament's most popular match and the only one to touch a million concurrent viewers.
As mentioned in previous articles related to the First Stand 2025, the calibre of teams participating in such competitions plays a major role in its eventual audience reach. Of the five regions, only one had the ideal candidate — Karmine Corp — qualify, and luckily, it went all the way to the Grand Final.
French viewers were a major reason for this League of Legends event doing as well as it did, outshining other major languages like Vietnamese. All in all, it notched more than 18 million Hours Watched (HW) and 509,029 Average Viewers (AV) over 36 hours of airtime.
Unfortunately, the tournament's watch time was far from reaching what was predicted by Esports Charts. One half of the Grand Final in the form of Karmine Corp may have satiated the audience interest, but the other team should ideally have been from the Americas so that the viewership went up a notch.
As a result of this lack of appeal among fans, the First Stand 2025 could not match the watch time of other global LoL championships like the Mid-Season Invitational. We will analyse what caused such a drastic move away from our expected watch time in a piece in the near future.
The broadcasts of Kamil "kamet0" Kebir, the superstar French Twitch streamer and Co-owner/President of Karmine Corp, were crucial. His coverage of the side's games made him the most popular co-caster at the First Stand 2025, outdoing other prominent names like Brit Marc "Caedrel" Robert Lamont and Korea's Kim "phonics1" Min-kyu.
Considering its popularity, especially compared to the other four participants, Karmine Corp would have been odds-on to end as the most popular side. However, it was another rising name that took this accolade having played the same number of games as the French side.
When looking at LoL competitions held this year, the First Stand 2025 has ended as the second most popular one. Only the highly popular LCK Cup 2025 has done better, and despite its short and compact format, the new international championship could have attracted a few more eyeballs.
Aside from the obvious absence of the top teams like T1, LOUD, Gen.G, and GAM Esports, there was also the inconvenience of the time zone. With the tournament happening in Korea, Western audiences were left with little choice but to watch their representatives play either late at night or early in the morning.
The final numbers show that many chose to skip matches as the possibility was there for overall audience growth as the event reached its conclusion, especially with Karmine Corp reaching the summit clash. Nevertheless, the first edition of the new First Stand tournament showed that with the right teams and in the right circumstances, it has the potential to do higher viewership figures.
In the meantime, Hanwha Life Esports and its fans will celebrate its first international championship victory since its official launch in 2018. The esports organization has also booked its place in the MSI 2025's Bracket Stage, skipping the preliminary rounds, apart from taking home $300,000 as prize money.
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