League of Legends has been in a bit of a strange position throughout 2025. It’s still recognized as one of the truly elite esport products, but interest has continued to wane over time, and this year, Twitch viewership for Riot Games‘ genre-defining title really took a hit.

League of Legends wasn’t exactly at its peak this year, despite some incredible moments, huge plays, and moments that will really stay in fans’ heads forever at LoL Worlds 2025.

Not only that, but interest in the casual side of the game has wavered slightly, too, as players anticipate major changes coming in the future.

All that led to a downturn in just about every metric for LoL broadcasts on Twitch throughout 2025, according to SullyGnome.

With hours streamed down by 5 million from the previous 365 days, the total hours watched for League on Twitch dropped by 240 million – a 20% drop from 2024.

Average viewers and average channels showed similar consistent drops, suggesting an overall loss of interest in the game.

LCS’ Devastating Rebrand

However, that wasn’t helped by one major change: the LCS rebranded to LTA (League of the Americas) for one season, in one of the worst branding decisions made in esports. From the offset, it was clear that fans weren’t going to take kindly to this change, and that really didn’t change throughout the year.

English viewership of LTA playoffs in 2025, versus LCS Summer 2024 viewership, was night and day, showing an almost 60% reduction.

English viewership of LTA absolutely cratered this year compared to LCS in 2024.

🚨English viewership DOWN 58%🚨

LTA Playoffs Peak Viewership: 98k
LCS Summer 2024 Peak Viewership: 234k

Portuguese viewership carried the shit out of the LTA this year so Riot better pray that… pic.twitter.com/oV6Agi8feH

— MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) September 30, 2025

Of course, there could be an argument for some viewers preferring to watch on YouTube, but that wouldn’t contribute to a 20% viewership drop.

LoL Next to Revive the Game?

Towards the end of 2025, Riot Games revealed details on League Next, or League of Legends 2 as fans are dubbing it, will be arriving in 2027. It will be a major overhaul of the current title, featuring a new client, a major update to Summoner’s Rift, and Rune changes, among other things.

While there is a bit of a wait, Riot will no doubt hope this leads to a heightened and renewed interest in the game, especially considering the fact that Twitch viewership statistics are a vital selling point for any publisher of game developer these days.

However, with major financial issues for LoL esports even in China and Korea, where it’s supposed to thrive the most, there may be a lot of work to do to bring League back to its former glory.