Inaugural LTA Cross-Conference struggles with format and viewership

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The first-ever split of the LoL Championship of The Americas (LTA) has come to an end, introducing a tournament series meant to unify North and South American teams under a single competitive structure. While the matchups between top U.S., Brazilian & LATAM teams hinted at moderate viewership potential, the event faced quite a few challenges: the format (and, more broadly, the very concept of LTA) sparked a lot of debate, and live audience numbers were just underwhelming.

The tournament took place at Riot Games Arena in São Paulo, Brazil, running across the past two weekends. The final stage, held this weekend, featured only former LCS teams from North America. In the Grand Final, 100 Thieves went head-to-head with Team Liquid, but TL dominated the series with a decisive 3:0 sweep, with two of the games ending in under 30 minutes.

  Yeon was easily the standout player in the Americas during the first split of the year / Photo by Lee Aiksoon/Riiot Games  

Team Liquid's botlaner, Sean "Yeon" Sung, was named the tournament MVP, earning the title in every match his team played. With this victory, TL became the third of five teams to qualify for First Stand, a new international event in the League of Legends competitive ecosystem. They join Hanwha Life Esports from the LCK and CTBC Flying Oyster from the League of Legends Championship Pacific (LCP), both of whom had secured their spots earlier on Sunday.

Now for the less encouraging part: the LTA Cross-Conference Grand Final peaked at just 170,000 concurrent viewers. That’s lower than most matches in LTA South. In fact, it’s even below the NLC, a Tier-2 European league for Northern European teams that isn’t part of the MSI/Worlds circuit. What’s more, the final’s low viewership is just one of several issues LTA is facing.

Format & viewership problems of LTA

The very idea of uniting teams from two different continents under a single tournament structure was, to say the least, controversial within the community. The community streamer Marc "Caedrel" Lamont noted that the significant distance between Brazil and the U.S. prevents local teams from properly scrimming with each other. This is especially crucial, as South America clearly trails behind North America in terms of overall performance. The results of the Cross-Conference only reinforced this, with all the Brazilian teams eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Over the course of four matches, they were able to secure just one game from their opponents.

  The Cross-Conference reached its largest audience in the first weekend  

Another key issue is the Cross-Conference format itself, which didn’t offer teams a chance to bounce back after losing their initial matches. It’s unclear why the organizers opted against using a double-elimination bracket, as seen in the recently launched LCP. Ultimately, all the Brazilian teams were knocked out in the first weekend, which had a significant impact on the tournament’s viewership. While the quarterfinals had an average of nearly 200,000 concurrent viewers, that number dropped by almost 40% once the Brazilian teams were eliminated.

Another, less immediately obvious issue is the branding of the series itself. CBLOL and, especially, LCS were well-established and recognizable names in the League of Legends esports ecosystem. In contrast, the newly introduced LTA still feels unfamiliar to fans, particularly within the North American audience. During the Cross-Conference, the tournament’s main English-language Twitch channel didn’t just fail to attract new viewers; it actually lost many. Over the course of two weeks, more than 1,200 people unfollowed the channel.

  Cross-Conference ranks in the top 3 LoL tournaments by peak viewership in 2025 so far, but its overall performance lags behind some of the "smaller" events  

That said, the LTA currently appears to be a lose-lose situation for both the U.S. and Brazil/LATAM, at least for the inaugural split. Generally, the U.S. lost a popular brand, and the trend of local audience decline has continued. Brazil and LATAM, on the other hand, aren't benefiting from the merger, as they lack enough opportunities to face North American teams more often and improve their performance.

Another key issue is that only one best-of-five series was played across all three events in the first split of LTA (the grand final of Cross-Conference), which also hurt the league's viewership. For context, the LCS hasn’t used the bo3 format in the playoffs since 2014. That said, this problem seems to be exclusive to the season’s first split, as subsequent splits feature the more familiar bo5 playoff format.

Another crucial aspect that can’t be overlooked is the allocation of slots for international tournaments. Given the current regional strength disparities, the First Stand will likely be without teams from Brazil and LATAM for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the Mid-Season Invitational will inevitably be missing a team from the ex-LCS, and either LATAM or Brazil lose a spot. 

Historically, Worlds featured three teams from North America, along with one from LATAM and one from Brazil. Now, however, both North & South are guaranteed only a single slot each, with the final third spot up for grabs at another interregional tournament within the LTA. It's highly likely that this spot will be claimed by a team from the ex-LCS. As a result, South America will likely be underrepresented at the year’s premier tournament, which will inevitably impact its viewership numbers.