The LEC’s Viewership Is Down 20% From Summer 2025

Ben Boland Published 25/09/2026

As the Summer Split has concluded, the results are out — and the LEC’s viewership keeps declining for the second year in a row. Even though Europe has achieved strong results this year, fewer viewers follow these teams regionally afterwards.

The LEC’s viewership is down 20% from Summer 2025

According to Escharts, the LoL European league has recorded 173,989 average viewers in Summer 2026, and 438,821 peak viewers. In 2025, the LEC had an average viewership of 213,292 with a peak of 473,474.

However, it has to be noted that summer 2025 was a unique split with each team only playing four matches, making for a very short regular season. As playoffs draw more viewers, this artificially inflates the average viewership for the split. Summer 2026 also had a particularly uninteresting bracket, with the three final matches going for a total of only ten games. As a result, the hours watched are actually up 33%, with LoL betting sites also remaining popular.

Looking at the whole year, Summer 2026 didn’t do as bad as what these numbers would indicate. (Note: Viewership always goes down the further into the year.)

Peak / Average viewership	2023	2024	2025	2026
Summer	344k / 168k	417k / 215k	473k / 213k	439k / 174k
Spring	572k / 213k	594k / 259k	509k / 224k	562k / 192k
Winter	–	–	801k / 322k	735k / 311k

LEC summer 2026

Is the LEC dying in 2026?

There’s necessary context to understand how to read these numbers.

Summer 2026 had disappointing playoff games
Summer 2025 had a short regular season
2023 and 2024 used best-of-1s, as did the winter splits.

Bo3s notoriously end up with a lower average viewership. Meaning:

Summer 2026’s lower average viewership can be explained by the shorter regular season, and the peak viewership by the unfortunate playoffs. The numbers sustain well from 2024 given the context.
Spring 2026 had a higher peak thanks to G2 Esports’ and Karmine Corp’s fanbases, with their final going to five games. The average is in free fall with identical formats.

☑️ My Take

Given the context, summer 2026 did fine in terms of viewership. The same cannot be said for spring, and the LEC in general has a downward trend in terms of viewership. The numbers remain competitive compared to 2023, and higher than 2018-2019. Riot took good steps by increasing roadshows again, but it might take more to stem the bleeding — especially when this decrease continues while Europe has strong international performances.

Image credit: Michał Konkol

Ben Boland

About Ben Boland

Ben is the Lead Editor at Win.gg, bringing a decade of iGaming industry experience having worked for both the operator and affiliation sides. With a formal journalism background, he is responsible for ensuring that every piece of content that we publish is relevant, accurate and well-written. In his own time, he enjoys playing video games and especially enjoys Rockstar titles, considering Red Dead Redemption 2 the finest title ever made. He has also spent a lot of time playing GTA V over the years and is fascinated by how streaming is changing the landscape of the industry.

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