NLC 2025 news and content powered by AGON by AOC
Update (March 2025): At the end of the NLC Winter 2025 season, the tournament had racked up a record 4.1m hours watched, and 47,267 average viewers (AV) over 87 hours of airtime, according to Esports Charts.
The NLC Winter 2025 final, won by Los Ratones, also exceeded 360,000 peak viewers.
Original article:
The Arozzi Northern League of Legends Championship has set new NLC viewership records, after big-name players and streamers made their league debut this past week.
Week 1 of the Winter 2025 season for UK and Nordics teams kicked off on January 15th, and as expected, it started with a bang.
Viewership peaked at 177,121 during the opening match between Nord Esports and Los Ratones, two teams featuring big-name players and personalities.
This means peak viewership rose 8,400% year-on-year compared to the 2,080 peak viewers in the NLC’s first season of 2024 (Spring). And overall, this broke the NLC’s previous viewership record (14,023 during NLC Summer 2022) by 1,164%.
This is according to Esports Charts data, which also reported 44,183 average viewers across the two broadcast days on Jan 15th and 16th.
An Esports Charts representative confirmed to Esports News UK that the data includes the official NLC broadcast, as well as co-streams.
Co-streamers for the NLC Winter 2025 season include the likes of Caedrel, Hysterics, Tolkin, Torok, YamatoCannon, DonJake, IWillDominate and more.
Caedrel’s Twitch stream was the most popular channel out of all the NLC broadcasts, with 98,842 peak viewers in week one, and 242,546 hours watched and 76,594 average viewers, compared to the official NLC broadcast which had around 13,000 viewers at one point.
Caedrel’s Los Ratones team were responsible for the two most-watched matches of week one: the aforementioned Nord game with 177,000 viewers, and their match against Lundqvist Lightside (LLS) which drew 158,229 peak viewers.
The news comes a few months after Caedrel set Worlds 2024 viewership records.
The third most popular match, according to Esports Charts, was the match between UK orgs Bulldog and Verdant with 114,910 peak viewers.
The Ruddy Sack (another UK org featuring a big-name roster) vs Kaos, was fourth with 41,072 viewers.
And if you look beyond stream viewership to also include vods, scrims, tweets, clips and other videos across the different teams and personalities involved in the NLC this year, views go into the millions.
The Los Ratones YouTube channel already has 224,000 subscribers, after launching just under two months ago, and most of their videos are generating more than 300,000 views each.
Verdant founder Sam ‘Sami’ Cunningham said ‘the impact of Caedrel in this league is incredible’, as he estimated Verdant had an estimated 650,000 unique viewers for their opening match overall.
LLS’ social media manager Basick echoed this impact Caedrel and others are having on the league, including esports journalist Rigas, who has been sharing NLC content on the LoL subreddit:
TO Leagues Media happy with ‘incredible NLC viewership far beyond what we dared to hope for’
Leagues Media, the tournament operator that runs the NLC, told Esports News UK: “Needless to say, the viewership for week 1 is incredible, and is far beyond what we dared to hope for.
“We’re very happy with the numbers we’re seeing, but more than anything we’re greatly appreciative of the opportunity to introduce Northern European League of Legends to a whole new audience.
“I believe we have a unique flair of the meta that could be exciting for new viewers.
“Regarding viewership numbers in upcoming weeks, I expect we’ll see a small downturn after the initial match days, and then peak again as we approach the finals. Historically that’s how it’s been, but the new format might shake that up a bit.”
Leagues Media
“During the NLC Winter 2025 playoffs stage (see the schedule here), there will of course also quite a difference in the following of the teams between matchdays, which will cause viewership to fluctuate quite a bit.”
We also reached out to former NLC product manager William ‘Kaiprioska’ Roche for comment, given he has been vocal about NLC viewership in the past.
He said: “The NLC has just witnessed a seismic shift like we’ve never seen for the region before! To put it into context, the first two days of the NLC 2025 this year had more watched hours than the entire combined watched hours of the past two years of the NLC… and then you’d also still have another 136,971 watched hours to spare on top of that!
“The work Frederik and the team have done to turn around the fortunes of the once fledgling product, is a testament to his tireless dedication to the region and their determination to push the NLC to heights never achieved before.
“For the first time in a while I can say that I’m genuinely, cautiously optimistic for the future of our region!
“We. Back. Baby.”
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
