Dramatic watch time growth following new Group Stages for LTA North & South Split 2

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Just last weekend, the two sides of the LTA finished up their second Split, marking significant progress in viewership for the leagues. The inaugural event of each LTA showed lower viewership than hoped for, but the Split 2 of each side has shown significant progress and seismic shifts. Esports Charts presents the viewership results of the LTA North and South 2025 Split 2, diving into how this new LoL esports region is developing. 

While the inaugural Split of the LTA sides followed a simple double-elimination bracket, Split 2 has seen the circuits host their first ever Group Stages. For this new stage in the LTA North, two teams emerged as front-runners for event winner, Cloud9 and FlyQuest. On the other side, in the LTA South, paiN Gaming seemed the obvious favourites of the event, having finished Weeks 4-6 without losing a game. 

The most popular match of each LTA side was its grand final, for the LTA North this featured FlyQuest and Cloud9, and the LTA South saw paiN Gaming and FURIA Esports battle it out. All four of these teams qualified for the Esports World Cup 2025 with their top two finish, and FlyQuest and FURIA also qualified for the 2025 Mid-Season Invitational as their region’s champion. The inclusion of a Group Stage also saw the total watch time — or Hours Watched (HW) — of the circuits increase dramatically.

In total, the LTA North 2025 Split 2 increased its total watch time by 249% compared to Split 1, and the LTA South 2025 Split 2 increased respectively by a lesser 143.5%, but reached a grander 12.69M Hours Watched total. The Northern side of the LTA had a particularly weak showing for its inaugural Split, meaning it was able to increase its viewership dramatically overall. However, due to the new, long Group Stages, both circuits did record decreases in their Average Viewers, which is to be expected. 

For its inaugural Split, the LTA South recorded a strong Peak Viewers (PV) record, propelled by the viewership of its popular co-streamers. Looking at the peak viewership for Split 2, the expanded Groups Stage did little to help the circuit reach a new highest peak. Although it recorded a slight increase in PV, it seems the LTA South will have to attract a new wave of viewers to continuing growing its viewership. The LTA North has been roughly catching up to its Southern rival in terms of peak and average concurrent viewers, although the LTA South continues to hold a lead for the moment. 

Once again, Brazilian streamer Gustavo "Baiano" Gomes remains integral to the viewership of the LTA South, and also the LTA North. Thanks to his multi-streaming across three major platforms, Baiano is able to draw a wide-net of potential viewers for his coverage of LoL esports. For the grand final of the LTA South 2025 Split 2, Baiano was able to reach over 122,000 Peak Viewers across his three broadcasts. Although he’s naturally more popular in the LTA South, his coverage of the Northern side of the League of Legends circuit still receives over 20,000 concurrent viewers regularly.  

The LTA North was home to the other top co-casters of the 2025 Split 2 events, firstly English-language co-streamer Marc Robert "Caedrel" Lamont. Caedrel has become a face of LoL esports for many esports fans, and his coverage of global League of Legends tournaments are followed by a significant portion of the esports’ viewership. For the LTA North, his Twitch broadcast fell just shy of 60,000 PV. Kim “김민교. (phonics1)” Min-kyo is a Korean co-streamer active on SOOP Korea (formerly AfreecaTV); for the LTA North, he received over 14,000 Peak Viewers, representative of Korean interest in the North American esports league. 

Following their brief Split 1 events, the LTA North and South have shown stronger, more representative viewership statistics for their second Splits. Comparing the circuit to other global League of Legends circuits, the LTA is still one of the less popular tier-one events. Although the leagues now consistently rank above tier-two circuits, there is still a journey for the circuit to be competitive with something like the LEC.