Mid-Season Invitational viewership dynamics and year-on-year growth

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The Mid-Season Invitational 2025 reached a new series record during its grand finals and collected well over 73,000,000 hours of watch time in total. Undoubtedly, the 2025 iteration was a major success, but considering the significant format changes for this year, how does it directly compare to last year’s MSI? Esports Charts takes a first look at the year-on-year dynamics for the League of Legends MSI series. 

Mid-Season Invitational year-on-year viewership comparison

In terms of the basic viewership metrics for this year’s MSI, Peak Viewers (PV) saw the most-considerable growth. The peak concurrent viewership of the MSI 2025 reached over 3,448,000 PV as Gen.G claimed another championship, and their 23rd series win in-a-row. Compared to last year, PV grew by over 21% at the MSI 2025.

Read also: Mid-Season Invitational 2025 sets viewership record for the MSI series

The Peak Viewers growth at the MSI this year was largely driven by Korean LoL esports fans. Korean peak viewership increased by over 31% for the MSI 2025, thanks to the highly popular Korean derby grand finals. On top of the strong Korean viewership for this match, English and Vietnamese audiences were also instrumental in the event’s peak; together, the top three languages accounted for 75% of the total peak viewership.

While Peak Viewers shattered the MSI record set by last year’s iteration, Hours Watched and Average Viewers could not increase compared to the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational. As a result of the new Fearless Draft system, far fewer teams are invited to the MSI, which leaves some regional audiences unrepresented and less likely to tune in. T1 also played in the Play-In stage at last year’s MSI, which drastically boosted early stage viewership for the tournament. 

Esports Charts will dive deeper into the full results of the MSI 2025 starting next week, exploring insights derived from the final statistics. Keep an eye on our blog and socials for our further coverage of the MSI 2025’s final results, or access the statistics yourself on the tournament page with an Esports Charts PRO subscription.