Mid-Season Invitational 2025 Play-In: Caedrel leads increased co-streaming share

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The Mid-Season Invitational 2025 is shaking up the League of Legends esports system with its new, exciting format. Starting in 2025, the event adopts the Fearless Draft format and switches to a best-of-five structure for all matches. These changes mean the tournament has fewer available spots, as each game will run longer and longer. The new format of the MSI 2025 was received well by fans, resulting in tens of millions of Hours Watched (HW) and a seven-figure Peak Viewers (PV) count. 

The first part of the MSI 2025, the Play-In Stage, began on June 27, hosting only four teams from various corners of the globe. Representing EMEA, G2 Esports played tough games against Brazil’s FURIA Esports and Vietnam’s GAM Esports. China’s Bilibili Gaming also eased past the competition, securing their spot in the next stage with two clean 3:0 wins. 

Ultimately, G2 Esports and GAM Esports’ elimination match was the most popular game on the final day of the Play-In. GAM Esports managed to push G2 all the way to the final map of the best-of-five, but ultimately, the EMEA squad secured the win and their place in the Bracket Stage. At peak excitement, the elimination match between GAM and G2 reached over 1.13M Peak Viewers.

The other most popular games of the MSI’s Play-In featured FURIA; the Brazilian squad was well-represented by their fans, who made up one of the largest audiences for the stage. Of course, famed Brazilian co-streamer Gustavo “Baiano” Gomes was at the forefront of this Portuguese-language viewership, multistreaming across Twitch, YouTube, and Kick. The Portuguese-language demographic was also one of the few major audiences to improve their viewership year-on-year for the MSI’s Play-In.

Read also: Official co-streamer list for MSI 2025, as annnounced by Riot Games

Aside from Brazilian fans, Vietnamese and international English-speaking fans stood behind the total viewership of the MSI’s Play-In. In total, the MSI 2025 received 13.47M Hours Watched for just over 21 hours of broadcasting time; despite the new format, the total broadcasting time of the stage remains similar to 2024, due to the reduce number of teams. 

Co-streaming is also becoming increasingly important for the MSI, as with all other LoL esports events. Compared to last year, co-streaming did not increase in terms of total Hours Watched, but it did increase proportionally to overall Stage viewership. The total amount of co-streamers also increased, totalling to well over 100 individual broadcasts. Marc Robert “Caedrel” Lamont was the most-watched co-streamer of all, who maintained 100,000 Average Viewers for the entire Play-In Stage, cumulating in over 2.1M Hours Watched.

The Play-In stage of the MSI 2025 is behind us, with G2 Esports and Bilibili Gaming having moved on to the Bracket Stage. All eyes are on the upcoming matches, where teams like Gen.G Esports, KOI, and CTBC Flying Oyster will take the stage – all of which boast a sizeable regional following, as well as superstar team T1. The Bracket Stage for the MSI 2025 begins on July 1; check out the Esports Charts Schedule tab for the MSI 2025 to make sure you don’t miss any of the coming action.