League of Legends, as an esports discipline, has evolved from basements and 480p streams to selling out massive stadiums and achieving chart-topping viewership. This couldn’t have been possible without Riot Games supporting and subsidizing the scene before it even attracted any kind of sponsorship or sold a single piece of merch.
While Riot funds the ecosystem from the League of Legends revenue built on in-game purchases and digital content, the esport also earns money through global and regional sponsorships, media deals, tickets, subscriptions, merchandise, and branding.
How does League of Legends esports make money?
Riot said in 2024 that it invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually into LoL Esports, which highlights League Esports as both a highly relevant competitive scene and also a long-term business investment to keep the game relevant.
There is no public breakdown showing exactly how much LoL Esports earns from each source, as Riot does not release standalone profit-and-loss statements dividing revenue into markets. But much can be inferred from money made by the company itself and the teams that participate.
Market intelligence company SuperData estimated that League of Legends generated $1.75 billion in 2020. Riot Games Limited, which consolidates much of Riot’s business outside the United States, generated €1.85 billion in 2024 across virtual items, royalties, and multiple Riot games. Neither number represents LoL Esports revenue alone, but both show the size of the underlying business supporting it, especially if we keep the statement about hundreds of millions invested in mind.
Who actually pays for League of Legends esports?
Four groups pay for League of Legends esports: Riot Games, sponsors, teams, and fans.
- Riot pays to run leagues, global events, broadcasts, competitive systems, and revenue-sharing programs.
- Sponsors pay to reach the audience around those events.
- Teams pay for rosters, coaches, analysts, facilities, travel, housing, content staff, and commercial operations.
- Fans pay through tickets, merchandise, subscriptions, in-game purchases, team cosmetics, and the attention that makes those sponsor deals valuable.
Riot Games does not publish a full public LoL Esports profit-and-loss breakdown by revenue stream, so any kind of precise “skins are X percent, sponsors are Y percent” chart would be misleading.
The public numbers that do exist, even if relatively vague, point to the game itself being the biggest revenue base. Sponsorship remains crucial for leagues and teams, digital revenue sharing is becoming more important, media rights matter more in select markets, and prize money is noticeable but relatively small.
The split between scale and profitability is also very important: Riot Games generated €1.85 billion in 2024, but the LEC recorded an €18 million loss in the same year and had accumulated losses of more than €71 million. That means League can be a huge game business while a major regional esports league still loses money.
The company can accept losses from an esports league when that league helps keep players interested in League of Legends. Teams have a different problem: their salaries and operating costs must be paid directly, while some of the value they create returns to Riot through game engagement and cosmetic sales.
Riot funds esports through League itself
Riot’s biggest source of money remains the game itself. League of Legends is free to play, but players buy in-game currency and use it on skins, chromas, event passes, bundles, icons, emotes, and other cosmetics. Most skins in the store are purchased with this in-game currency.
The estimated $1.75 billion that League generated in 2020 is a useful metric, even though it is an older third-party estimate. For the longest time, Worlds had a base prize pool of $2.225 million, and this was the case in 2020 as well. In the past, Riot used to publish how much additional funds were added to the pool through the sales of Championship skins and relevant passes, but the company hasn’t revealed this information since 2019.
Still, the base fund was increased to $5 million in 2025, and this year’s prize pool is yet to be revealed.
Worlds is the event that draws the most eyes, and it regularly tops the viewership charts across all esports, so this revenue-to-expense ratio makes a lot of sense. Major tournaments help player retention, give players regular reasons to follow professional teams, discuss champion picks, return to ranked play, and buy event-related content. Riot can benefit from that activity even when an individual league or tournament does not produce a direct profit.
Riot has made the link between these cosmetics that players buy and esports more direct through revenue sharing. In 2024, the company announced the Global Revenue Pool, which collects LoL Esports digital revenue and distributes it to Tier 1 teams. The pool is split into three buckets: 50 percent general shares for Tier 1 teams, 35 percent competitive shares based on performance, and 15 percent fandom shares based on fan engagement with team-branded digital content.
In 2026, Riot Games decided to remove the prize pools for individual regional leagues like LEC, LPL, and LCK from this GRP system, as they were relatively small and did not meaningfully reach the players. Instead, they decided to reinvest this money into other undisclosed areas, while still keeping the prize money for international events like MSI and Worlds through the Global Revenue Pool system.
The GRP replaced a model that depended more heavily on league sponsorship revenue. Under the previous structure, teams paid around $10 million for permanent league participation and received 50 percent of certain league revenues. Riot said most of that shared income came from sponsorships, while media rights contributed much less. Teams now receive fixed stipends alongside digital revenue sharing.
Battle Passes, tournament skins, team emotes, and Hall of Legends bundles all feed into this strategy. Hall of Legends inductees and World-winning teams receive a percentage of pass and bundle sales, which are also getting further split and shared with the rest of the teams in their league.
Skins also continue to be used for funding international events. For example, Riot selected Broken Covenant Jhin as the MSI 2026 revenue-share skin.
How League teams make money
League teams earn money from sponsorships, Riot Games payments, digital revenue sharing, merchandise, creator content, events, player transfers, and prize money. The amount of money earned and the split also vary from team to team. Large international teams can sell global sponsorships, while smaller or regionally focused teams may depend more heavily on Riot payments or a small number of commercial partners.
G2 Esports is a great example, as the entire organization generated €27 million in turnover in 2022, with sponsorship accounting for around 60 percent, or roughly €16 million. Publisher payments contributed an estimated €7 million, equal to around 30 percent of revenue, while merchandise brought in about €200,000. However, these are company-wide figures rather than numbers for G2’s League team alone.
G2’s League division generated €3 million in revenue during the same year and recorded an operating profit of €2.2 million. All of this sounds great, but G2 as a whole still posted negative EBITDA of €670,000.
Fnatic had a bit more balanced but still difficult 2023. The organization generated €21 million, including €5.91 million from sponsorship, €4.98 million from esports, €3.61 million from gaming gear, and €636,000 from merchandise. Fnatic nevertheless recorded a net loss of €6.37 million after spending €26.86 million.
Merch is usually smaller than sponsorship or publisher revenue, but Karmine Corp is a major exception. The organization generated €7.01 million in 2023 and reached break-even. Merchandise contributed an estimated €2.5 million, around 40 percent of total revenue, with more than 40,000 jerseys sold.
T1 is unsurprisingly at the very top of the current model: the organization generated ₩88.6 billion, around $65 million, in 2025 after revenue increased by more than 80 percent. It also recorded its first annual profit, with merchandise, sponsorships, international expansion, and the commercial value of Faker contributing to that growth.
These examples should not be treated as a standard result for every League team, as G2, Fnatic, Karmine Corp, and T1 are large organizations with established brands, creators, and international fanbases. Many teams have much fewer sponsor opportunities, lower merch sales, and limited access to revenue from games outside League of Legends.
Prize money is also a revenue stream for the teams, but it can’t be relied on. T1 received $445,000 for the team’s first-place finishes at Worlds 2023 and 2024 and a whole $1 million in 2025. This is not an insignificant amount, but it’s still small compared with the annual revenue and operating costs of a major organization. And, well, not every organization can three-peat at Worlds.
Why sponsorships are still king
Sponsorship remains one of the most important sources of direct cash because LoL Esports is free to watch. Riot and its teams simply cannot depend on every viewer buying a ticket or subscription. Sponsors pay for broadcast integrations, arena branding, award segments, social campaigns, branded videos, jersey placement, product activations, access to players and creators, and literally anything else in between.
Mastercard became the first global sponsor of LoL Esports in 2018 through a multiyear agreement covering Worlds, MSI, and the former All-Star Event. Mercedes-Benz joined Riot’s global events as the official automotive partner in 2020, and Secretlab returned as the official chair partner for Worlds 2025 for the seventh consecutive year.
Long-term partnerships are especially valuable because Riot cannot sell an unlimited number of automotive, payment, hardware, or chair partnerships without reducing exclusivity or heavily adjusting its offerings. Digital and in-game items have a higher ceiling because Riot can release more products and sell them directly to millions of players. This was actually one of the main reasons for shifting team revenue sharing toward digital items.
Riot expanded the available sponsor market in 2025 by allowing approved betting partnerships for Tier 1 LoL and VALORANT teams in the Americas and EMEA, but betting branding remained prohibited on Riot broadcasts, socials, as well as team jerseys and names.
Riot cites Sportradar’s data, which claims that two major titles, League of Legends and VALORANT, reached $10.7 billion in global betting turnover. It needs to be clarified that this represents bets placed, not revenue received by Riot or teams. This is an enormous number, so it’s no wonder that Riot Games eventually allowed the teams to tap into it.
Is League esports profitable?
There is no single answer because Riot Games and teams measure success differently. Riot can absolutely take direct monetary losses when esports drives marketing and generates indirect revenue, player retention, sponsor interest, and maintains the long-term value of the League of Legends brand.
Teams need sponsorships, Riot payments, digital sales, merchandise, and content revenue to cover their own operating costs, pay the players and staff, and make money in general to even justify their own existence.
As we mentioned before, the LEC generated €18.4 million in 2024 but posted a loss of almost the same at €18 million. Fnatic generated €21 million in 2023 and still lost €6.37 million. G2 produced €27 million in 2022 revenue and finished close to breaking even.
Esports teams can generate hefty sums of money, but when player salaries, staff, production, travel, facilities, and content operations remain expensive, it’s very difficult for them to become profitable.
Karmine Corp and T1 show that profit is possible, but both have unusual advantages. KC converts a highly active French fanbase into merchandise and event revenue, while T1 combines international success with the most commercially valuable player in League history, Faker.
Unfortunately, the reality of League Esports nowadays is such that many teams and even leagues operate at a loss. Even Riot can’t subsidize its regional leagues indefinitely, and that’s why there are some production changes and downscaling that happen every so often.
Why Riot keeps investing
Riot keeps investing because esports gives League of Legends a continuous, non-stop, year-round marketing machine. Exciting matches, rivalries, personalities, regional competitions, and international events all draw lots of eyeballs. Esports isn’t something that needs to generate immediate profit, but it also can’t keep posting big losses consistently.
Esports also helps generate additional digital products with team skins, event passes, and, recently, even honors the best players in history with their very expensive Hall of Legends skins and bundles. Revenue sharing gives organizations a reason to promote those products and build stronger fan engagement.
Riot Games is willing to absorb regional losses because League esports as a whole is overall net positive for the game that may have very well died a long time ago otherwise.
Could the business model change?
This is a very difficult question. The model is already trying to move away from dependence on league sponsorships. The Global Revenue Pool gives teams a larger stake in digital sales and rewards three things separately: membership in Tier 1 competition, sporting results, and fan engagement.
More team-branded cosmetics would be the most obvious answer, but Riot already has Worlds skins and Hall of Legends passes, so to include more team-branded stuff, they would need to upend many old systems and traditions.
Teams do get icons and emotes, but there still could be ways to increase their involvement and in doing so, force them to promote the game and these items more.
Broadcast rights could also bring in more money, but this is becoming less and less realistic with the rise of co-streaming and how much of the main feed viewership various streamers lure away. Bilibili reportedly paid around $113 million for three years of exclusive Chinese streaming rights to the World Championship from 2020 to 2022, but deals like that are much less likely in the post-COVID era.
The most likely future is a refinement of the existing model and finding a better balance rather than a complete overhaul that could be a critical mistake instead.
FAQ
Q: How does Riot make money from esports?
A: Riot earns direct esports revenue from sponsorships, in-game items, subscriptions, media agreements, tickets, and merchandise.
Q: Do League teams make money?
A: Some League teams make money like T1 and Karmine Corp, but many remain unprofitable. Their main sources include sponsorships, Riot payments, digital revenue sharing, and merch, and their results depend heavily on operating costs and the size of each team’s fanbase.
Q: Is League esports profitable?
A: LoL Esports is financially valuable to Riot Games even when an individual league loses money. Teams face a more traditional profitability challenge because they must cover salaries and operating expenses from their own revenue.
Q: Who pays League players?
A: Professional League players are paid by their teams through contracts within the terms Riot Games established for any given competitive league.
Q: Does Riot own every league?
A: Riot owns League of Legends and controls the rules, structure, and commercial framework of its global esports ecosystem. Regional leagues can use different operators, partnership structures, and team agreements, but they remain under Riot’s competitive ecosystem.
