How LoL Worlds 2025 broadcasts shape team sponsor visibility

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Worlds is one of the biggest esports productions on the planet. For brands, it’s the kind of stage you usually have to fight your way onto: global reach, a polished broadcast and a partner lineup that seems to grow more sophisticated every year. Tournament sponsors get the full package, from on-screen integrations to audio callouts, all woven neatly into the show.

But when the conversation shifts from tournament sponsors to team sponsors, the picture becomes far less straightforward. Their visibility depends not only on jersey placements or in-game branding, but also on how MOBA broadcasts are structured and how League of Legends specifically handles its camera work, pacing and on-air priorities.

This note takes a closer look at those nuances: how Worlds 2025 broadcasts naturally elevate some visuals while burying others, and why a team’s sponsor exposure can fluctuate so much despite the massive scale of the event.

Partner integrations in Worlds broadcasts

Worlds has long perfected how it presents its tournament partners. The broadcast gives them a prominent, polished presence: branded banners in transitions, shout-outs from talent, clean product placement on desk shots, sponsor segments woven into graphics packages, even chat-level visibility. Everything feels intentional and integrated into the show’s identity, and Riot Games executes it with a level of consistency few esports productions can match.

Team sponsors, however, receive none of that treatment. They aren’t integrated into the broadcast in any structured way. There are no logo callouts, no branded replays, no lower thirds, no visual space carved out for them. The only time a team partner appears on-air is through incidental jersey shots, and even then it’s more by accident than by design.

  Featuring team sponsors is a well-established standard in the LCK   

What makes this contrast even more striking is that the broader League of Legends ecosystem does have successful models for sponsor integration at the team level. The LCK and former LTA, for example, incorporate team partners into their broadcasts through sponsor-driven graphics, and other light-touch segments that create visibility without overwhelming the production. These are regional circuits with a far more competitive sponsorship landscape, yet they still find room for team partners without compromising the league’s own commercial space.

This creates an odd disconnect: at Worlds, the biggest and most commercially valuable LoL event of the year, team sponsors are practically invisible. Not because the ecosystem lacks experience or tools, but because the philosophy of the international broadcast prioritizes   neutral stages where only Riot’s official event partners are meant to be visible.

How MOBA broadcasts differ from other esports formats

Not all esports broadcasts operate under the same logic, and League of Legends is a perfect example of how a game’s structure shapes what viewers actually see.

Take Counter-Strike, for instance: short rounds, constant resets, quick shifts in pace and plenty of natural pauses give the production team far more freedom. The camera has room to breathe. It can jump between angles, highlight players, show reactions, cut to talent or slot in branded elements without risking any loss of context. The ebb and flow of the game itself creates opportunities for visibility.

MOBA titles are the opposite. A League of Legends match is often thirty-plus minutes of uninterrupted action across a single, fixed playspace. Every skirmish matters, every rotation matters and missing even a few seconds can change the entire reading of the game. The camera has vastly less flexibility: step away for too long, and you risk losing a pivotal fight or the setup that led to it. The result is a broadcast that is inherently locked to the game map and offers fewer natural entry points for showcasing anything outside the gameplay itself.

  With a dense HUD, a constantly active minimap and essential player stats on screen, there’s almost no room for additional in-game integrations during a match   

This limitation directly affects sponsor visibility, especially for team partners. In a MOBA broadcast, the only reliable way to show team sponsors is through non-game content: walkouts, interviews, behind-the-scenes segments, talent desk moments and ceremonial stages. Worlds does include all of this, of course, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the reality that for most of the broadcast the camera is glued to the map.

That’s why team branding on jerseys, hoodies, peripherals and other physical gear becomes so important. For many teams, it’s the only moment in the show where their sponsors are guaranteed any visibility at all. And compared to shooters or fighting games, where player cams, celebration shots, and constant perspective changes create natural exposure, League of Legends leaves far less room to work with.

In other words: MOBA broadcasts are spectacular for storytelling and gameplay clarity, but when it comes to elevating team sponsors, the format itself places hard constraints on what can realistically appear on-screen.

Evaluating team sponsor placements at Worlds 2025

When it comes to merchandise and apparel, most Worlds teams follow broadly similar patterns: logos on the chest, collarbone area, shoulders and occasionally the upper back. The variations lie less in where the sponsors are placed and more in how many logos appear and how readable they are on broadcast. Some teams simply have more partners to display; others leave areas of the jersey unoccupied because those sponsorship slots haven’t been sold.

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Outerwear complicates things further. Many teams rely heavily on jackets, which often introduce new visibility issues. Hoods and high collars can cover collarbone placements entirely, and some jackets sit loosely enough to obscure parts of the jersey even when players are seated on stage. In several matches, jackets effectively replaced jerseys as the primary on-air layer, reducing the visibility of chest logos. Camera angles add another constraint: productions frequently shoot from the side, meaning one player’s body blocks another, leaving only the lead player’s shoulder logo visible. The prevalence of shoulder placements across teams likely reflects this practical reality.

 Jackets are extremely common at Worlds, and while some teams manage to integrate their sponsors effectively, others don’t pull it off nearly as well   

Player cams come with their own limitations. In most cases, only the collarbone area is consistently visible in the frame. If a team relies too heavily on shoulder or sleeve logos, those placements rarely appear on mini-webcams during the match. Logos on jackets or smaller text-based designs often become illegible at that scale, reducing their on-air impact.

With that in mind, here’s a closer look at how some of the Worlds 2025 playoff teams approached sponsor placement.

T1

T1 has one of the strongest apparel layouts this year. Logos are positioned everywhere they reasonably can be, including a rarely used spot directly beneath the neckline, which tends to show up well on player cams. The black jersey with predominantly white, highly recognizable logos (Red Bull, Mercedes-Benz, Spotify, Samsung) reads cleanly on stage and on webcams, and the visual simplicity of these brand marks helps maintain clarity even at reduced sizes. T1 also uses shoulder, collarbone and back placements effectively, resulting in consistent on-air visibility throughout different segments of the broadcast.

G2 Esports

G2 Esports also performs well, balancing placements across the chest, collarbones and shoulders. Iconic partners like Red Bull and Logitech remain identifiable on mini-webcams, and the jersey generally translates cleanly on camera. Compared to T1, G2 features fewer overall logos, which creates a cleaner visual but slightly reduces total exposure. Still, their layout remains one of the more effective among Western teams.

KT Rolster

KT Rolster’s approach is somewhat mixed. Several matches featured the team in jackets rather than jerseys, reducing the visibility of chest logos and leaving the center of the apparel noticeably empty. Instead, KT heavily stacked logos on one sleeve, creating a dense vertical row that becomes harder to read in motion or at smaller scales. Their jerseys include collarbone logos, but the switch to jackets introduces inconsistencies in visibility. Overall, some placements work, but the chest area still feels underutilized relative to available space.

  T1 arguably featured the most effective sponsor placement among all Worlds 2025 teams   

Top Esports

Top Esports rely primarily on shoulder placements, leaving significant empty space on the chest and collarbones. The small logo near the collarbone suffers from low readability on stream, and with most sponsor marks positioned on the shoulders, visibility during in-game cams and front-facing interviews is limited. As a result, TES logos rarely appear during matches, and even stage segments capture them inconsistently.

Gen.G

Gen.G frequently appeared in jackets throughout the event. These jackets, with their reflective material and bright tones, sometimes introduce glare or reduce contrast, both of which hurt readability on camera. Collarbone placements are occasionally covered by the jacket’s neckline. Their jersey, however, is notably stronger: a clean black base with bold white logos placed on collarbones, shoulders and under the neckline. When worn, the jersey dramatically improves sponsor visibility, but the reliance on jackets limits how often those optimal placements appear on-air.

CTBC Flying Oyster

CTBC Flying Oyster use both jerseys and vests, and in many cases the vest mirrors the jersey’s placements, ensuring nothing gets covered. The chest and shoulder layout is standard and functional, though the team logo itself is more visually dominant than any of the commercial marks. This isn’t inherently a problem, but it means team partners receive comparatively less visual weight when the design is viewed at a glance.

Across all playoff teams, T1 achieves the most effective overall sponsor visibility. Their advantages are straightforward:

• Consistently occupied placement zones with no major empty areas.

• Strong use of neckline and collarbone spots, which are most visible on player cams.

• High-contrast white-on-black logos that remain legible even when downscaled.

• Globally recognizable brands with simple, instantly identifiable marks.

• Shoulder and back placements that complement rather than replace chest logos.

The combination of placement strategy, design clarity, and brand recognizability gives T1’s partners more reliable exposure than those of most other teams.

Other teams fall short for predictable reasons: fewer total logos, unclear designs at small sizes, empty collarbone areas during matches, overreliance on shoulder placements or outerwear that obscures key spaces.

The apparel choices at Worlds 2025 highlight a broader truth: in a MOBA broadcast environment where the game dominates the screen and camera flexibility is limited, apparel placement becomes one of the few consistent tools teams have to showcase their partners. Small differences in design, contrast and layering can make the difference between logos that appear dozens of times on-air and logos that barely register.

Text by Alexei Borisov, Kateryna Mnukhina