Each year, League of Legends World Championship, commonly called Worlds, brings together the top pro teams from around the globe to compete for the title of world champion. It’s the pinnacle of the competitive League season, drawing millions of viewers, and awarding millions of dollars in prize money.
Worlds 2024 ran from late September to early November, and Worlds 2025 is scheduled for October 14 through November 9. During this period, fans worldwide tune in to watch elite teams clash for the Summoner’s Cup trophy.
The tournament’s popularity has reached record heights in the esports scene. The 2024 World Championship finals became the most-watched esports match ever, peaking at over 6.9 million concurrent viewers.
LoL Worlds (the League of Legends World Championship) is the annual international tournament that concludes each competitive season of League of Legends. All year long, teams compete in regional leagues (such as Korea’s LCK, China’s LPL, Europe’s LEC, and North America’s LCS). Aside from the prize money, top performing teams in each competition of the year (such as MSI and regionals) get the chance to qualify for the Worlds Championship.
Typically held in October and early November, the event tends to span multiple weeks and locations.
The 2022 finals drew over 5 million peak concurrent viewers, and 2023’s final peaked around 6.4 million. This upward trend continued into 2024, which saw the championship match reach nearly 7 million simultaneous viewers worldwide. These figures don’t even fully account for audiences on Chinese streaming platforms, which are known to be at least half of total viewership.
In terms of global interest, LoL Worlds rivals traditional sporting events, filling arenas with live spectators and captivating online audiences across countless streams and languages.
It’s the moment each year when League of Legends shines on the world stage, and fans from every region come together to see which team will claim the crown this year.
The tournament begins with a Play‑In match on October 14 to determine final entry into the Swiss Stage. That match is a best‑of‑five single elimination series with the Fearless Draft format, played between the fourth-seeded teams from the two highest-performing regions at MSI (LCK and LPL). The winner joins 15 other teams to form a field of 16 for the Swiss Stage.
The Swiss Stage runs from October 15 to 25 in Beijing at the Smart Esports Center. The format includes five rounds. Teams face elimination upon reaching three losses, and they reach the Knockout Stage once they earn three wins. Most matches are best‑of‑one, but decisive matches (those that eliminate or advance a team) use best‑of‑three, all under Fearless Draft rules.
Eight teams advance to the Knockout Stage, held in Shanghai’s Mercedes‑Benz Arena from October 28 to November 2. This stage is a single-elimination bracket, with all matches played as best‑of‑five and using the Fearless Draft format. The quarterfinals and semifinals occur in succession without a break in between.
The tournament culminates with the Finals on November 9 in Chengdu, at the Dong’an Lake Sports Park Multifunctional Gymnasium. The championship match is a best‑of‑five, also played under Fearless Draft rules, and determines the team that lifts the Summoner’s Cup.
The Worlds Championship uses both “seeds” and “slots” to decide which teams can compete, and which cannot.
A seed is a tournament slot that a region earns through competitive play and assigns to one of its teams for Worlds. The number of seeds a region has is decided by Riot Games each year. When a region has four seeds, it means four teams from that region can compete at worlds.
Seeds are also ranked within their region. A higher-ranking seed will start later on in the tournament, letting them skip stages like the Play-Ins.
Each Worlds Championship has a total of 17 seeds.
The two top-performing regions at the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) each receive four Worlds seeds: three that go directly to the Swiss Stage and one that starts in the Play-Ins Stage.
The MSI champion also gives its region four seeds, but the team itself must still be chosen by the region for Worlds.
The champion of the third split in a region automatically earns a seed. Another seed goes to the team with the most championship points that has not already qualified through winning Split 3.
The Regional Finals (sometimes called the “Gauntlet”) decide the remaining seed or seeds for that region. For most regions, this final seed starts in the Play-Ins Stage.
In 2025, Riot will merge several smaller competitive regions that struggle to get in the limelight into two combined leagues.
Reducing the number of weaker seeds at Worlds will mean that the top players in these regions can be concentrated. This is supposed to lead to stronger “wildcard” teams each year.
The Worlds Championship 2025 will be the first Worlds to utilize Fearless Draft, a new format popularized by the LPL.
Under Fearless Draft, once a champion is picked in a best-of series (a set of games played to the best-of-3, best-of-5, etc.), it cannot be picked again by either team. For example, if a midlaner picks Yone in the first match in a best-of-3, neither them or anybody on either team can pick Yone in the other two matches.
This forces competitors to rely less on staple picks and narrow pools, and to expand their roster. In turn, Fearless Draft makes best-of-5 series (such as the Finals) an unpredictable and explosive experience for players, casters and spectators alike.
The total prize pool for Worlds 2025 has not yet been officially announced. However, the Global Head of LoL Esports, Chris Greeley, confirmed the prize pool in an interview on March 16th ahead of the First Stand Tournament finals.
The prize pool will start at more than double of last year’s, exceeding 4.5 million dollars. This number is not final, since merchandising and profits from the event itself will also form part of the prize pool.
Riot Games typically guarantees a base amount that is divided among all participating teams according to final placement, with the champions taking the largest share. The actual total often grows beyond the base amount due to revenue generated from in-game event sales, such as Championship skin lines and the Worlds Pass. A percentage of the sales from these items is distributed to the teams.
In the years since this model was introduced, it has significantly boosted the winnings for top-performing teams and provided meaningful payouts for lower-placing ones as well.
While the exact prize breakdown for 2025 is not yet public, previous Worlds tournaments have followed a tiered prize. First place typically receives over 20% of the pool, with the remaining funds distributed incrementally down to teams eliminated in the earliest stages. Even teams that fail to advance past the Swiss Stage receive a share.
