Worlds 2025: Viewership slows as tournament moves into Swiss Stage

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Following an explosive Play-In, Worlds 2025 viewership slowed down as the Swiss Stage began. T1’s match attracted the largest audience, but none of the games managed to break the 2M concurrent viewer mark. Overall, the first day of the group stage recorded nearly a 30% decline in average viewership compared to last year.

The first day of the Worlds group stage kicked off at 07:00 CEST with eight consecutive matches — and it didn’t lack surprises. The biggest upset came from 100 Thieves, who toppled the formidable Bilibili Gaming. On the other hand, China’s Anyone’s Legend made a strong start with a win over Hanwha Life Esports. Unfortunately, all European teams fell short in their opening games.

When it comes to viewership, matches featuring Korean teams proved the most popular, helped by the favorable start times for the local audience, as the tournament is held in China. The day’s most-watched match was T1 vs FlyQuest, which drew 12% more viewers than the next best matchup between AL and HLE.

Although the Chinese time zone might appear favorable for the tournament’s Asian audience, the Worlds 2025 Swiss Stage opened with noticeably weaker results compared to last year. Viewership fell across all key metrics (down by 29–33%) with every major demographic showing lower activity. Even Korean audiences tuned in less, though their decline was the mildest at around 15%.

The drop in viewership can be traced to two main factors. First, as mentioned earlier, the tournament’s location in China means less convenient match times for European and North American audiences, both of whom tuned in more actively during last year’s Europe-based event.

Secondly, this year’s group stage began almost right away. Usually, Worlds experiences a noticeable audience surge between the Play-In and Swiss Stage, but this time there was little room for buildup as the opening stage featured only a single match. Still, it’s too early to draw any major conclusions, we’ll be keeping an eye on the tournament’s viewership trends over the coming days.

Worlds 2025 resumes tomorrow. Keep up with the schedule, results, and viewership figures on Esports Charts!