Asian Champions League 2025: Results & Viewership

May was an action-packed month for esports fans across Asia. The Asian Champions League 2025, a brand-new tournament series spanning nine different games, recently came to a close. The competitions ran throughout the month, with winners not only taking home cash prizes but also securing spots at the upcoming Esports World Cup 2025. Esports Charts breaks down the key highlights, results, and viewership stats from the inaugural ACL series.

Asian Champions League 2025 was announced in September last year, when Hero Esports (formerly VSPO) unveiled a new tournament series, culminating in a grand final in Shanghai. Over time, the organizers revealed the official lineup of games for the ACL, which featured major titles like Counter-Strike, Valorant, Dota 2, League of Legends, and more.

The total prize pool across all tournaments reached $2 million, with teams from China, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, and other countries throughout Asia and Oceania eligible to compete. Several events also served as qualifiers for the Esports World Cup 2025, providing teams with an extra incentive to compete.

The primary audience for the 2025 Asian Champions League tournaments is in China, which is why all matches were streamed on local platforms like Douyu, Huya, and Bilibili. In this article, Esports Charts excludes data from these platforms, as they don't share actual viewer numbers and rely on proprietary metrics to gauge broadcast popularity.

Asian Champions League 2025 — Counter-Strike

The Asian Champions League 2025 Counter-Strike tournament ran from May 6 to 16, with matches hosted in Yancheng and Shanghai. Eight teams competed, four of the region’s highest-ranked squads based on Valve’s rankings, plus four who earned their spots through a closed regional qualifier. Notable participants included FlyQuest, Lynn Vision Gaming, and TYLOO. The grand final came down to Lynn Vision and TYLOO, with TYLOO sweeping the series 2:0. The first map, Inferno, was a brutal slugfest that went into four overtimes, delivering nonstop action for the fans. With the win, TYLOO claimed the $300,000 prize and a spot at the Esports World Cup 2025.

The Counter-Strike tournament drew relatively modest viewership, peaking at just 16,897 concurrent viewers. That said, it’s important to keep in mind that this was a regional event, with most of the audience tuning in via Chinese streaming platforms. Accordingly, numbers on Twitch and YouTube dipped, as expected.

Asian Champions League 2025 — Dota 2

The Asian Champions League 2025 Dota 2 tournament took place over a single day, May 16. The event moved quickly, as only four teams were in the running. These squads, all finalists from the ACL x ESL Challenger China, competed for the championship title and a coveted spot at the Esports World Cup 2025.

Xtreme Gaming came into the tournament as the clear favorite, and Wang ''Ame'' Chunyu squad lived up to the hype. In a thrilling grand final against Team Tidebound, it took all five maps to crown a winner.

When it comes to viewership, the Dota 2 tournament pulled in a peak audience comparable to the Counter-Strike event, with 15,893 concurrent viewers during the grand final. Most fans tuned in on Twitch, with Russian and English serving as the primary broadcast languages on Western streaming platforms.

Asian Champions League 2025 — Valorant

The Valorant tournament was the standout in terms of popularity among all the Asian Champions League 2025 events. This wasn’t surprising, considering the lineup featured teams from partner leagues like VCT China and VCT Pacific, including heavy hitters such as Paper Rex, the runner-up of the VALORANT Champions 2023.

Six teams battled for the title, with the grand final featuring two VCT Pacific representatives, DRX and Paper Rex. DRX came out on top, winning 3:1 and pocketing $110,000. The tournament didn’t offer qualification spots for the Esports World Cup 2025 since these teams had already secured their places through their league performances.

The Asian Champions League 2025 Valorant matches drew an impressive peak audience of 95,912 live viewers. English was the dominant broadcast language, making up over 52% of total watch hours and leading the charts in both average and peak concurrent viewership. A big part of English’s popularity came from popular community casters like Ryan ''NRG.Shanks'' Ngo and PRX.Spicyuuu.

Other tournaments at Asian Champions League 2025

On the Esports Charts tournament page, you can also find reports on the Asian Champions League 2025 events for Teamfight Tactics. Coming soon, the site will add coverage for tournaments in League of Legends, CrossFire, and Street Fighter 6 as part of the series.

Winners of the five 2025 Asian Champions League tournaments will earn a spot at the Esports World Cup 2025. This applies to players and teams in Counter-Strike, Dota 2, CrossFire and Street Fighter 6. Just a reminder: the Esports World Cup 2025 will take place in Riyadh from July 8 to August 24, with a total prize pool of over $70 million across all events. Esports Charts will be closely tracking every EWC 2025 tournament, regularly updating results and viewership stats on the event pages.