New event, regional mergers in spotlight as League of Legends readies for 2025 season
As a brand new League of Legends season is ready for kickoff, fans are more than eager to see what is in store over the next 12 months. After all, 2024 was a whirlwind of activity and milestones, especially in terms of viewership, capped off by a record-shattering 2024 World Championship that saw T1 create even more history.
The community also witnessed numerous exciting moments and thrilling twists last year, including in the most prominent global tournaments and regional leagues. This resulted in a rise in the Hours Watched (HW) figures in four of the five biggest circuits compared to 2023, with the ever-growing Vietnam Championship Series (VCS) also seeing a record rise in its popularity despite a slight decrease in its yearly watch time.
Of course, there were a few things that needed work, with the declining audience returns of the League Championship Series (LCS) coming into sharp focus last year. The once-dominant series witnessed cumulative drops in the HW and Peak Viewers (PV) numbers compared to 2023, with its viewership more or less hitting an all-time low.
Unsurprisingly, Riot Games was quick to announce changes to the 2025 season not only to address the problems facing the LCS but also to make things more exciting and unexpected throughout its esports circuit. These tweaks, which we will discuss later in this article, will no doubt affect teams and regions, in turn affecting the game's viewership.
Recapping Highs and Lows from 2024
A new competition left its mark on fans in 2024, with the Esports World Cup serving as a nice breather from regional action as the community shifted its focus to a global event unlike any before. What gave it importance that the winner would secure a ticket, and an extra slot for its region, at the Worlds 2024.
Alongside the new international event, there were changes to Worlds 2024 as the number of slots for each region changed, with the Mid-Season Invitational 2024 and the EWC 2024 serving as extra routes to the coveted Global Championship. Interestingly, to ensure fairness in domestic leagues, the top two at the MSI 2024 had to qualify for their region's Summer Playoffs, except the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC), to keep their slots at the World Championship intact.
Most of the top regional leagues, including League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK), LEC, Campeonato Brasileiro de League of Legends (CBLOL,) and League of Legends Pro League (LPL), improved on their yearly watch time and peak concurrent viewership. While the top-tier Korean league was again the leader in terms of viewership statistics, the Brazilian series grew sufficiently enough to end as the third-most-popular regional circuit in League of Legends, behind the LCK and the LEC.
The success of teams like Karmine Corp, Movistar KOI, and Gentle Mates also renewed the focus on streamer-owned esports organizations, which are growing in importance when looking audience reach of various tiers of tournaments.
It is not just these star internet personalities who have been vital to the continued growth of the game's viewership across the globe. The audience boom for LoL, and its world championship, became particularly prominent when co-casting became a common feature of the broadcasting aspect of its competitions.
Changes to 2025 LoL Esports Season
The entire League of Legends ecosystem is set for a shake-up, starting with the introduction of a third global event that will precede the Mid-Season Invitational 2025 and the Worlds 2025, taking place after the first split of the year. The First Stand 2025 will be a fairly compact competition consisting of five invited teams from each region and will feature a round-robin format, meaning each team will play each other once.
The top four teams from the round-robin bracket will then battle it out in the playoffs stage for the ultimate early-season glory, thus promoting cross-region rivalries. This new event, coupled with Riot's decision to bring together a few circuits (which we will discuss later), means all regional leagues will now adopt a three-split system, something the LEC had previously employed.
Riot has clarified that this tournament will serve as grounds for experimentation and innovation, so readers can expect fresh competitive formats and systems in the future. Moreover, the winning team at the First Stand 2025 will earn a second bye for their region at the MSI 2025, bypassing the Play-Ins and advancing directly to the Bracket Stage.
Furthermore, it will implement a "fearless draft," where champions who have already been played in the series cannot be picked again, encouraging the mixing and matching of team compositions and tactics. This is the first time the draft system has been changed in years.
One of the biggest changes to the LoL esports roadmap this year is the introduction of multi-region circuits. The biggest beneficiary is seemingly the struggling LCS, which has been experiencing a worrying viewership decline over the past few years, with its 2024 events providing no respite or solutions.
As a result, Riot Games revealed that the LCS and CBLOL circuits will come together to form the North and South conferences of the new Americas region, called the League of Legends Championship of the Americas (LTA), meaning the LLA is effectively being phased out. Each conference will consist of six current partnered teams and one LLA team, with the addition of a new guest team spot.
Thus, two teams from the LCS, four from the CBLOL, and four from the LLA will miss out in 2025. Interestingly, the guest spot will be a dedicated slot for sides either promoted or relegated to and from the second tier of competition. Essentially, the North and South conferences in the Americas region will be host to eight teams, the same number that will participate in the new League of Legends Championship Pacific (LCP).
Here are the start dates for the first splits of each new region:
- LPL: January 12
- LCK: January 15
- LCP: January 17
- LEC: January 18
- LTA: January 25
Regarding slots at each of the three global events, the five regions — Americas, LEC, LCK, LPL, and LCP — will each have one slot at the new competition (five total teams), two slots at the MSI 2025 (ten total sides), and three slots at Worlds. Additionally, the mid-season champion and the second best-performing region will earn additional Worlds slots for their leagues, bringing the total number of teams at the season finale to 17.
It will be worth watching how smaller teams and circuits are affected by the combining of regions. With fewer teams now participating in the tier-1 leagues, there is a real chance that promising sides and players drop off to lower divisions. However, there is a chance to grab the spotlight via the Guest slot, with a tier-2 team getting incorporated into the tier-1 system.
What Fans Can Expect This Year?
There are quite a few things to watch out for in the new season, with Choi "Zeus" Woo-je's move away from T1 being right at the top. Leaving a roster that has just won two straight World Championship titles would be seen as risky in any sport, but it remains to be seen if the Top laner can help new team Hanwha Life Esports, the reigning Korean champion, make further dents on the domestic dominance enjoyed by his old team and Gen.G.
Sticking with Asian LoL, the LPL introduced stricter salary caps at the end of 2024 to prevent the bigger teams from overspending on top-tier talents and creating massive gaps with the smaller squads. Moreover, the equitable distribution of players and wealth aims to ensure strong financial stability for all participants.
However, this may have its disadvantages, as organizations won't be able to spend on creating superteams that could guarantee China returns to the pinnacle of LoL globally after falling behind the Korean sides over the past few years. The presence of this new cap and the accompanying taxes impacting an esports team's financial situation is also a possibility, and how the league and its rosters navigate such a huge change while also looking to put up optimal performances at global events will be intriguing to follow.
More intriguingly, with the financial troubles witnessed by another prominent region, LCS, recently, could it just be that such salary caps become a norm for Riot Games should the playing field become more even.
Speaking about China, two of Invictus Gaming's 2018 Worlds-winning roster have reunited this year, joined by three other talented players. Whether it can come close to replicating the success from a few years back remains to be seen, but the side will play a crucial role in the Asian nation's stated ambition to return to the top of the LoL tree.
Over in the Americas, the merger of the north and south regions has already seen Denilson Oliveira "Ceos" Goncalves become the first Brazilian import to North American LoL, and a tier-1 league, in the new LTA. The Support has joined Shopify Rebellion, and with such a pathway now wide open, there is a chance other talented pros could make the jump both ways, especially with the South American leagues getting condensed.
Moreover, two of the now-defunct LLA's traditional teams, Isurus and Estral, have merged, with this single roster set to make its debut in the LTA South 2025 via the guest spot. The organization will have to fight it out against the best tier 2 teams from the LRS and CBLOL Academy to stay in the league, which won't be an easy feat.
In some other good news for North American LoL, Disguised will participate in the main league thanks to the Guest slot, although it will have to fight to keep its slot. This could only mean higher viewership, with the team, thanks to owner Jeremy "Disguised Toast" Wang, already creating a buzz in the community via its innovative approaches and robust fan engagement. It has also prepared for life in the big time with a few tournaments under its belt in the North American Challengers League (NACL).
It is undoubtedly going to be a huge year for League of Legends esports, one that will carry the extra pressure of matching up to the highs of the audience viewerships reached last year. The shuffle in the regions, and hence, the number of teams could also prove crucial in how fans receive each event, and the first splits of the five regions could be a precursor of things to come.
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