Esport events in 2025 saw huge improvements when it comes to scale, consistency, and the rise of long-form leagues rather than just one-off world finals. Here are the 10 most-watched and most popular esports events in 2025.
Across the year, League of Legends and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang dominated both total hours watched and peak concurrent viewers. Korea’s revamped LCK 2025 Season and global LoL events also shared the spotlight with Southeast Asia’s MLBB ecosystem.
LCK’s new season format garnered over 161 million hours watched, outplaying Worlds 2025. At the same time, Counter-Strike 2 Majors, The International 2025, and the MLBB Mid-Season Cup all secured places in the global top 10 by hours watched.
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10 most-watched Esports Events in 2025
According to Esports Charts, here are the most-watched esports events in 2025 in terms of hours watched:
| Rank | Tournament | Game | Hours Watched |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LCK 2025 Season | LoL | 161,795,458 |
| 2 | 2025 World Championship | LoL | 136,433,724 |
| 3 | MPL Indonesia Season 15 | MLBB | 113,297,083 |
| 4 | MPL Indonesia Season 16 | MLBB | 101,258,660 |
| 5 | BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 | CS2 | 76,107,382 |
| 6 | Mid-Season Invitational 2025 | LoL | 75,301,957 |
| 7 | StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 | CS2 | 71,313,787 |
| 8 | The International 2025 | Dota 2 | 63,159,604 |
| 9 | MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025 | MLBB | 50,339,328 |
| 10 | LCK Cup 2025 | LoL | 48,203,855 |
LCK 2025 Season is the most-watched esports event of the year by hours watched, with 161.8 million hours watched across its April to late-September calendar. Its structural overhaul played a major role here, as instead of three separate seasonal splits, Riot consolidated Korea’s professional LoL year into a single, extended league that kept fans locked in for months.
Worlds 2025 ranks second in total hours watched with 136.4 million hours watched, down from the 190 million hours posted by the previous year’s World Championship. The primary reason is not a collapse in interest but a shorter tournament, as last year’s iteration ran around 20 hours longer, which naturally inflated its overall watch time.
MPL Indonesia Season 15 and 16 finished third and fourth by hours watched, with 113.3 million and 101.3 million hours watched, respectively. Indonesia is MLBB’s strongest region, and MPL ID has become must-watch content for local fans. At the same time, MLBB’s free-to-play, low-spec nature and mobile-first distribution mean viewers can watch and play on the same device, lowering friction for tuning in.
The International 2025 posted 63.2 million hours watched, up from 55.1 million the year before. That growth is notable given increased competition from other titles and demonstrates that Dota 2’s flagship event still commands a dedicated global audience.
Counter-Strike 2’s two Majors, BLAST Austin Major 2025 and StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, take fifth and seventh place, with 76.1 million and 71.3 million hours watched. However, neither Major appears in the peak viewers’ top 10, which is now monopolized by LoL and MLBB.
10 most popular Esports Events in 2025 by peak viewers
| Rank | Tournament | Game | Peak Viewers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2025 World Championship | LoL | 6,752,585 |
| 2 | MPL Indonesia Season 15 | MLBB | 4,132,224 |
| 3 | Mid-Season Invitational 2025 | LoL | 3,447,582 |
| 4 | MPL Indonesia Season 16 | MLBB | 3,110,921 |
| 5 | MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025 | MLBB | 3,069,302 |
| 6 | ESL Snapdragon Pro Series: Mobile Masters | MLBB | 2,769,107 |
| 7 | LCK 2025 Season | LoL | 2,032,201 |
| 8 | LCK Road to MSI 2025 | LoL | 1,965,776 |
| 9 | LCK Cup 2025 | LoL | 1,907,634 |
| 10 | MPL Philippines Season 15 | MLBB | 1,802,089 |
League of Legends and MLBB dominate the very top of esports by peak viewership, shutting out other titles from the peak top 10 entirely in 2025. Both titles also sit in regions that currently drive the majority of global esports consumption, which are Korea and wider Asia-Pacific for LoL, and Southeast Asia for MLBB.
Layered ecosystems include domestic leagues, such as LCK, MPL ID, and MPL PH, that feed directly into international events, so fans follow storylines all year and then converge in huge numbers when players meet on global stages.
Also, Asia-Pacific now accounts for more than half of global esports fans, with China, Korea, and Southeast Asia leading live-broadcast reach. LoL is entrenched in Korea and China, while MLBB is culturally embedded across Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and neighboring markets.
On top of that, orgs like T1, Gen.G, ONIC, and RRQ have star players such as Faker, who have multi-year fanbases that show up reliably for every big match. Riot and Moonton also allow or actively promote co-streams, letting major personalities restream matches to their own communities, which also massively inflates peak concurrency while keeping engagement high.
