The top 10 most-watched esports events of 2025

The 2025 esports season was packed with high-class events, record-breaking performances and unforgettable moments across dozens of titles and genres.

With the calendar concluding, Esports Insider takes a look at the most-watched esports tournaments of 2025.

Like last year, the 2025 list is based on viewership data from esports data platform Esports Charts, which does not include Chinese audience numbers. Still, this overview paints an insightful picture of the most recent esports events calendar, highlighting two dominant titles by viewership: League of Legends and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB).

The top 10 most-viewed esports events of 2025 kick off with the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, an event that was special for several reasons.

It was the first Major to take place in the US since the ELEAGUE Major: Boston in 2018. Moreover, Austin proved to be a worthy host city, as its Major became the most-watched Counter-Strike competition in history by hours watched.

From June 3rd to 22nd, 563,411 average viewers accumulated over 76m hours watched during the event’s nearly 136-hour airtime. In comparison, the biggest CS tournament by peak viewership (2021’s PGL Stockholm Major) recorded around 71m hours watched.

With a figure of 2.7m, the 2021 Stockholm Major still remains as the highest veiwed Counter-Strike event ever.

Meanwhile, the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 peaked at 1.79m viewers during the Grand Final between MongolZ and Team Vitality. The latter emerged victorious, winning $500,000 (~£370,000) of the event’s $1.25m (~£926,000) total prize pool.

According to tournament organiser BLAST, the Austin Major also generated an economic impact of $102m (~£76.4m).

The MLBB Professional League Philippines (MPL Philippines) is the mobile game’s franchised tier-one circuit in the Philippines. 

As the first regional MLBB competition of the year, MPL Philippines Season 15 took place from February 28th to June 1st. Eight teams competed for the event’s $150,000 (~£111,000) prize pool, with Team Liquid PH lifting the trophy.

Despite being a regional regular-season tournament, 1.8m peak viewers witnessed Team Liquid defeat its rival ONIC Philippines in the Grand Final. This marks the highest viewership figure to date for MPL Philippines, surpassing the Season 14 record of 1.6m peak viewers.

Moreover, 192,071 average viewers tuned in for over 31m hours watched across Season 15’s 162-hour airtime. 

2025 saw significant changes to the global League of Legends esports ecosystem. To accommodate the introduction of an additional international tournament before the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), all regional leagues held kickoff events in early 2025.

In South Korea, the inaugural LCK Cup 2025 invited its 10 teams to fight from January 15th until February 23rd for a single seed at the new First Stand global event. During its 112-hour airtime, 428,479 average viewers accumulated over 48m hours watched.

LCK’s kickoff competition also featured a novel Group Stage format in which teams from Group Baron would face off against opponents from Group Elder. Moreover, it was the official LCK debut of Fearless Draft, League of Legends’ new pick/band system.

In the end, it was Hanwha Life Esports (HLE) which emerged victorious and later became the inaugural First Stand champion.

The most popular match of the LCK Cup, however, was the Playoffs series between HLE and LCK legends T1. The high-stakes match attracted 1.9m peak viewers and resulted in the elimination of T1 from the tournament.

First Stand itself recorded 1.1m peak viewers and 509,029 average viewers, and, therefore, couldn’t make it among the top 10 events by viewership this year.

The LCK’s popularity among esports fans persisted throughout the league’s second chapter of the year: the LCK 2025 Season.

Spanning more than five months (April 2nd – September 28th), the LCK 2025 Season featured a total prize pool of ₩562.5m (~£281,000) and over 450 broadcast hours. 

The large-scale competition was divided into several sub-events, which offered seeding for later rounds, and, most importantly, qualification for the remaining two global tournaments in 2025.

LCK’s Road to MSI 2025 was the first highlight of the spectacle. From June 7th to 15th, six LCK teams battled through a single-elimination bracket filled with best-of-fives (BO5) only. Whilst Gen.G Esports came out on top, T1 later defeated Hanwha Life to secure the second and final slot for MSI 2025.

With 1.97m peak viewers, this crucial match also became the most-watched series on the Road to MSI. The competition itself accounted for 19 airtime hours of the entire LCK 2025 Season, recording 752,227 average viewers and nearly 15m hours watched.

It is worth noting that this would technically make the LCK Road to MSI 2025 the seventh most popular event, as it has been recorded as a standalone event by Esports Charts, separate from the LCK 2025 Season. However, the LCK has this event as part of the overall 2025 Season, and so Esports Insider has added it as part of the entire competition.

The LCK 2025 Season set an even higher viewership record later on, leading up to the season-ending League of Legends World Championship. Similar to Road to MSI, the Season Playoffs were packed with BO5s across a double-elimination bracket.

Once again, T1 was the most popular team to watch among LCK fans despite Gen.G lifting the season trophy. T1’s elimination match against the regional champion recorded a whopping 2.03m peak viewers.

Despite the team’s elimination, T1 qualified for Worlds as the region’s fourth seed and made League of Legends history later in the year. Moreover, the fan favourite played in all five of the season’s most-watched matches (excluding LCK Road to MSI), each surpassing 1m peak viewers.

While ESL’s Snapdragon Pro Series (SPS) is a multi-genre mobile esports circuit, its MLBB competition continued to dominate the viewership leaderboard during the 2025 edition.

From April 7th to 13th, the SPS Mobile Masters 2025 saw 12 teams from across the globe battle for $200,000 (~£148,000). Inviting high-profile teams and popular community casters, such as R7 Tatsumaki, paid off, as the event garnered an average of 468,387 viewers and 17m hours watched across its 36-hour airtime.

In addition, 2.72m peak viewers watched ONIC Philippines win the Grand Final against RRQ Hoshi. The Semifinals between RRQ Hoshi and Team Liquid ID became the second-most popular series at Mobile Masters with 1.6m peak viewers.

Since its rebranding from the Southeast Asia Cup in 2024, the MLBB Mid Season Cup (MSC) has been the first major international tournament of the game’s annual competitive calendar. 

Its 2025 edition took place from July 10th until August 2nd in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, featuring a whopping prize pool of $3m (~£2.26m). Similarly impressive were its audience numbers. 

The 2025 Mid Season Cup recorded 3m peak viewers — almost 700,000 more than the previous year. Although Team Liquid PH claimed the trophy in the Grand Final, it was a Knockout Stage series between RRQ.H and SRG.OG, which attracted the most viewers.

Overall, the Mid Season Cup garnered 599,873 average viewers and over 50m hours watched during its 84-hour airtime. These numbers make it the most-viewed global MLBB tournament of the year.

However, it should be noted that MLBB’s season-ending M7 World Championship would have likely exceeded MSC’s viewership statistics this year if it had taken place. The championship is usually held in December but was delayed until January 2026 to make space for the SEA Games 2025.

The MPL Indonesia Season 16 was Indonesia’s final tier-one competition before the M7 World Championship in January 2026. 

From August 22nd until November 2nd, nine teams competed for a ₹4.86m (~£223,000) prize pool as well as two coveted slots in the annual championship. These seeds were given to back-to-back MPL champion ONIC and Season 16 runner-up Alter Ego.

The Grand Final between the two teams was also the most-watched series of the event, attracting over 3.1m peak viewers. In addition, nearly 460,093 average viewers accumulated over 101m hours watched during Season 16’s 220-hour airtime.

Following this year’s changes to League of Legends’ competitive ecosystem, the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) 2025 was not the first, but the second international LoL tournament of the season.

Taking place from June 27th until July 12th, the event saw LCK legends T1 and Gen.G persevere against international rivals to clash in the Grand Final. A record-breaking 3.44m peak viewers witnessed Gen.G defeat T1 and win the lion’s share of MSI’s $2m (~£1.5m) prize pool.

Despite being the most popular MSI edition in LoL history, MSI 2025’s average viewership of  955,205 was slightly lower compared to its predecessor. Still, the event recorded 75m hours watched across nearly 79 hours of airtime.

Whilst the Korean fandom contributed significantly to these viewership numbers, the double-elimination format with Fearless Draft was also received well by LoL fans worldwide. Moreover, co-streamers such as Marc ‘Caedrel’ Lamont continued to attract a large percentage of esports viewership.

The second-most-watched esports tournament of 2025 is MPL Indonesia Season 15, underscoring the massive popularity of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang esports, especially among the Indonesian community. 

With two MPL Indonesia events featured on this list, the country remains the strongest region within the MLBB ecosystem in terms of viewership. Furthermore, it is an impressive feat for a regional tournament to beat audience records of prestigious global competitions, such as MSI and Counter-Strike’s Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Cologne.

MPL Indonesia Season 16 ran from March 7th until June 15th, with ONIC and RRQ Hoshi qualifying for the Mid-Season Cup under the gaze of 4.1m peak viewers. The overall tournament garnered 488,525 average viewers and over 113m hours watched during its nearly 232-hour airtime.

Perhaps most importantly, Season 15 became the most popular MPL Indonesia edition to date and the third-most-watched tournament in MLBB esports history. Only the M4 and M5 World Championships have recorded higher peak viewership.

The 2025 League of Legends World Championship (Worlds 2025) made esports history in multiple ways. For its winner, T1, this was the team’s third consecutive Summoner’s Cup and its sixth Worlds title overall — an achievement which no other League of Legends organisation has achieved before.

In terms of viewership, Worlds 2025 was the most popular esports tournament of the year by a large margin. The Grand Final between T1 and KT Rolster drew 6.75m peak viewers. 

Moreover, LCK fans witnessed the climax of the so-called Telecom War, a decade-long rivalry between two esports organisations, each represented by a major South Korean telecommunications company (SK Telecom and KT Corporation).

Leading up to this moment, 17 teams had been competing from October 14th until November 9th for the event’s $5m (~£3.7m) prize pool. Throughout nearly 89 broadcast hours, 1,534,400 average viewers accumulated over 136m hours watched.

However, despite the significance of the event and its Grand Final for League of Legends esports, 2025 Worlds recorded slightly lower peak viewership than last year’s edition. With 6.85m peak viewers, the 2024 World Championship remains the most-watched esports event in history, putting its successor in second place.

Dota 2’s most prestigious global event, The International, saw its fourteenth edition become the third most popular Dota tournament of all time. The Grand Final between Xtreme Gaming and champion Team Falcons was followed by 1.78m peak viewers. 

Overall, The International 2025 recorded 582,117 average viewers and over 63m hours watched across a 108-hour airtime.

Similarly, VALORANT Champions 2025 became the third-most-viewed VCT event to date, with an impressive 1.47m viewers tuning in to the Grand Final between Fnatic and the winner NRG. 

Furthermore, Champions 2025 garnered 466,462 average viewers and nearly 48m hours watched during its 102-hour airtime. However, according to Riot Games, the viewership peak, including China, is 5m.

Mobile esports showed strong viewership throughout the year, even outside of MLBB. The PUBG Mobile World Cup 2025 peaked at 1.38m viewers on its final day. Broadcast for just under 39 hours, the competition recorded 450,802 average viewers and around 17m hours watched.

Moreover, Counter-Strike 2’s second Major of the year also managed to reach the 1m mark, recording a peak viewing figure of 1.58m.