Despite fewer teams, extended format makes Split 2 LPL's most-watched event in three years
One of the rapidly improving League of Legends regional leagues, LoL Pro League, saw its second split of 2025 conclude on June 14. A tweak in the format from the first split meant more matches and much higher airtime, making it the series' most-watched event in over three years despite having one team less compared to previous seasons.
The top 16 teams in China contested the LPL Split 2 2025, with $579K in prize money on the line. More crucially, the top two would get the chance to represent the country at the upcoming global championships: MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025 and Esports World Cup 2025.
Almost three months of intense action led to a Grand Final between Anyone's Legend and Bilibili Gaming, a battle between the league's rising side in 2025 and its most dominant force. In a shocking upset, the former ran out 3:1 winners to clinch its maiden LPL split and its biggest victory yet, having also ended as the runner-up in the year's first split.
This summit clash recorded 208,965 Peak Viewers (PV), the only game in this LoL competition to cross the 200,000 live viewers mark on Western streaming platforms. Anyone's Legend's growing status among Chinese fans could also be seen in the fact that its other clash with Bilibili Gaming, from Day 9 of the Playoffs, was the second most popular match.
More crucially, with an extended format that included more games for viewers to enjoy and hence higher airtime, the LPL Split 2 2025 touched 15.6 million Hours Watched (HW), making it the series' third-most-watched tournament. Only the two summer splits from 2022 and 2020 have done better, taking pride of place as the lone entries to pass the 16 million HW mark.
Compared to the LPL Split 1 2025, there were a lot more channels and platforms covering the second split, which also contributed to the high watch time. Almost all the major languages, including Western ones like English, French, and Portuguese, saw increases in their overall HW numbers as this previously insular Chinese regional league continues to become more accessible to creators from outside Asia.
The English language is especially showing its value, with both official channels and co-casters like Marc "caedrel" Lamont showing huge increases in their watch times between the first two splits of 2025. Former LoL pro caedrel has become quite popular among LPL audiences, as seen in the fact that he has ended as the most-watched channel at both tournaments.
Even the official LPL English channels on YouTube and Twitch are attracting higher audience numbers. Both enjoyed HW split-on-split surges of 142% and 197%, respectively, meaning the three most-watched non-Chinese channels to cover the event were English, reiterating the language's growing influence in the Chinese League of Legends livestreaming segment.
The rise in interest in Western languages is also reflected in the stats of Twitch, which is where most of these languages' top co-casters reside. The purple platform saw a jump of 130% in its watch time, which, combined with YouTube's spike of 102%, played a part in the LPL Split 2 2025's milestone HW figures.
When looking at the other regional leagues in 2025, the LPL Split 2 2025 has done pretty well in terms of watch time. The extended format helped it outperform both the LTA and LCP splits, continuing its recent rise and perhaps stamping its mark as the most preferred LoL circuit outside of the big two of the LCK and the LEC.
With a new face and an established regular representing China at the two upcoming international championships, it will be interesting to see if they can break the nation's global drought. Korea has been the recent dominant force at global events, and a Chinese will undoubtedly make things interesting, perhaps even contributing to higher viewership numbers.
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