2025 League of Legends National Leagues: A Season of Transformation
Shifting Tides in European Regional Competition
The 2025 professional League of Legends landscape has undergone significant transformation, particularly within the EMEA Masters circuit. The winter season revealed dramatic viewership shifts across national leagues: French LFL and Spanish LVP Superliga experienced notable declines, while the newly established Polish Rift Legends enjoyed remarkable growth. Meanwhile, Germany’s Prime League suffered after losing several prominent organizations, and smaller leagues like Hitpoint Masters and LPLOL have seen their relevance diminish. The Esports Balkan League struggled following format adjustments, and Road of Legends surprised many by changing its primary broadcast language.
NLC’s Remarkable Ascension
The Northern League Championship (NLC) emerged as the unexpected frontrunner among national leagues in early 2025, with viewership numbers that rivaled even some franchised leagues. In a single season, NLC transformed from a modest regional tournament into a media powerhouse featuring popular streamers, community casters, and former LEC professionals. A key addition was Los Ratones, a new team founded by Marc “Caedrel” Lamont, one of League’s most recognizable English-language commentators.
The statistics tell a compelling story: average viewership skyrocketed from approximately 4,000 to 47,200 viewers per match—more than tenfold growth. The league accumulated over 4.1 million hours watched and reached a peak of 360,545 concurrent viewers, establishing new records for the competition.
French and Spanish Leagues Lose Ground
The French LFL secured second place in viewership among EMEA Masters leagues during Winter 2025, but showed concerning weakness overall, barely making the top 10 most-watched seasons in LFL history. The league has struggled since Karmine Corp’s main roster departed for the LEC, leaving only their academy team, Karmine Corp Blue. Co-owner Kamel “Kameto” Kebir’s community broadcasts no longer generate their former viewership numbers.
Spain’s LVP Superliga faced an even steeper decline, with Hours Watched dropping 35.5% and Peak Viewers falling 57.9% compared to Summer 2024. Similar to the French league, LVP Superliga initially thrived during KOI’s popularity surge under Ibai “Ibai” Llanos, but lost momentum after the team joined the LEC. Despite new organizations like Gentle Mates and Joblife entering the league with popular streamers behind them, they haven’t replicated the drawing power of Ibai’s broadcasts.
Turkey’s Resurgence
The Turkish Championship League (TCL) has begun a promising recovery after several challenging years. The league initially declined in 2023 after losing its World Championship qualification spots, then suffered another setback in 2024 when Twitch access was restricted within Turkey. However, Winter 2025 showed signs of revival, with Hours Watched increasing by nearly 330% and peak viewership growing by 314%. This resurgence stems from successful streams on Kick and community broadcasts by influential figures like Ahmet “Jahrein” Sonuç and Ferit “wtcN” Karakaya.
The league has also benefited from competitive drama, with Papara SuperMassive winning their third consecutive championship through exciting series, including two reverse sweeps where they came back from 0-2 deficits to win 3-2. Such dramatic finishes have proven ideal for driving audience engagement.
Poland’s Successful Relaunch
The Polish competitive scene underwent a complete transformation in 2025 with the launch of Rift Legends, replacing the former Ultraliga. This change occurred after Polsat Games declined to renew their agreement with Riot Games in 2024. The new league, organized by GAM3RS_X and popular Polish streamer Damian “Nervarien” Ziaja, has revitalized regional interest.
Viewership for Rift Legends Winter 2025 multiplied tenfold compared to Ultraliga’s final season, largely due to Nervarien’s community broadcasts. The league also became significantly more accessible to independent streamers, with four times as many channels covering the competition. This growth propelled Rift Legends past Spain’s LVP Superliga in viewership—an achievement previously unimaginable for Polish League of Legends.
Prime League’s Post-Exodus Challenges
Germany’s Prime League underwent substantial restructuring before the winter season, with several established organizations departing the competition. Fans no longer see teams like FC Schalke 04, SK Gaming Prime, MOUZ, and NNO Prime competing in the league.
This exodus immediately impacted viewership metrics, with total watch time decreasing by approximately 50% and peak viewership dropping 28% compared to the previous season. Numbers would have fallen even further without community broadcasts from German streamers Frederik “NoWay” Hinteregger and Maximilian “HandOfBlood” Knabe. Despite their limited streaming hours, these content creators topped the charts for both peak and average viewership. The waning interest became evident when the grand final between BIG and E WIE EINFACH failed to reach the top five most-watched matches of the season.
Unexpected Vietnamese Interest in Greek League
Greece’s League of Legends ecosystem also reset in 2025, with CowboyTV replacing PVP MEDIA as tournament operator. This transition included rebranding from Greek Legends League to Hellenic Legends League.
The rebranding did little to boost overall engagement, with Hours Watched declining by 20%. However, an unusual situation emerged regarding peak viewership, which increased by 46%—largely due to unexpected coverage from Vietnamese streamers during opening day. These broadcasters, for reasons unclear, briefly streamed HLL matches despite the league featuring no Vietnamese or Southeast Asian players. This anomalous viewership spike was short-lived; excluding this outlier, peak viewership for the Greek league actually decreased by nearly half compared to GLL Summer 2024.
Hitpoint Masters’ Declining Importance
The Czech Hitpoint Masters joins the trend of national leagues experiencing viewership challenges. For 2025, the league expanded from 8 to 20 teams but saw its EMEA Masters qualification spots reduced from four to one, alongside a 50% prize pool reduction from $10,000 to $5,000.
These changes reflect and contribute to the league’s diminishing significance. Despite featuring more teams and matches, Hitpoint Masters Winter 2025 accumulated 40% fewer hours watched than the previous season. Many matches involving newer teams attracted only 100-200 viewers per stream. Playoff excitement also diminished, with six of eight series ending in decisive 3-0 sweeps.
Arabian League’s Competitive Imbalance
The Arabian League Winter 2025 recorded its lowest viewership in series history, stemming primarily from deteriorating competitive balance. Previously, Twisted Minds, Nigma Galaxy, and Geekay Esports maintained a compelling three-way rivalry for regional supremacy. That dynamic collapsed when Twisted Minds missed the winter season due to roster issues and Nigma Galaxy’s unsuccessful transfer window transformed them from contenders to bottom-dwellers (finishing last). Geekay Esports now dominates unchallenged, securing another championship with an overwhelming 22-1 map record, including an undefeated playoff run.
Additionally, the league’s official YouTube channel experienced a dramatic viewership decline, dropping nearly tenfold from the previous season. Once the leading source for peak viewership, it now ranks below several community broadcasters.
Italian Tournament’s Modest Gains
The LoL Italian Tournament remains one of the lower-profile national leagues with limited audience reach. Nevertheless, Winter 2025 showed encouraging progress, with slight increases in both peak and average viewership compared to the previous season. This growth primarily came through the league’s official channel, as community casting remains minimal.
Like other national leagues, the Italian competition now offers just one EMEA Masters qualification spot instead of four. Macko Esports continues to dominate with little meaningful opposition.
Portugal’s LPLOL Reformation
The Portuguese LPLOL underwent substantial changes in 2025 that mirror developments in other regions: diminished prominence, increased team count, and reductions in both prize pool and EMEA Masters qualification opportunities. The league now employs an open semi-professional format where any team can potentially qualify through preliminaries.
While LPLOL Winter 2025 maintained consistent viewer numbers, total watch hours declined by 43%. This reduction stems primarily from the format change from Swiss Stage to Group Stage competition. Despite having more teams, each plays fewer matches and exits the tournament earlier, significantly reducing broadcast hours.
Road of Legends’ Language Shift
Road of Legends debuted in 2025 following another tournament operator change, replacing the Elite Series that had served Benelux teams for several years. The Elite Series concluded when its operator, Unlocked, terminated its agreement with Riot Games. GameWaves now organizes Road of Legends as the region’s primary competition.
While structurally similar to its predecessor, Road of Legends differs significantly in presentation—particularly language. Where Elite Series primarily broadcast in Dutch and French, Road of Legends prioritizes English-language coverage. This shift has negatively impacted immediate viewership compared to Elite Series’ final season, though the increasing involvement of community casters suggests potential future growth.
Esports Balkan League’s Format Struggles
The Esports Balkan League remains the least popular national competition within the EMEA Masters ecosystem. Its complete format overhaul in 2025 aimed to introduce more broadcast languages and attract new audiences but has instead produced contrary results.
Esports Balkan League: 2025 Winter replaced the Swiss Stage plus Playoffs format with a season-long double-elimination bracket. This change reduced match count, broadcast hours, and total watch time. Peak viewership also declined, largely because the league’s most popular matchup—the derby between Partizan Esports and Crvena zvezda (a traditional Serbian sports rivalry extending into esports)—never materialized during the Winter 2025 season.
The most successful teams from these national leagues will converge at the EMEA Masters Winter 2025 tournament, scheduled for March 17-23.
