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NLC 2025 news and content powered by AGON by AOC | Photos by Nottingham Trent University content creation student Tim Roberts-Biggs and video recorded by Nottingham Trent University students at Confetti X
It’s been a fantastic start to the year for the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC), with record viewership and big names involved in the league, like Caedrel and IWilLDominate. But what’s it been like behind the scenes working on the tournament day-to-day? How can tournament organiser Leagues Media build on this momentum? And what are their future plans?
We sat down with Leagues Media CEO Christian Henriksen and NLC Product Manager Frederik Hockauf at Nottingham Trent University’s Confetti X facility during the recent finals weekend to find out.
What an amazing Winter 2025 season for the NLC. What’s it like seeing the league’s resurgence and looking back on how things have changed over the past year?
Frederik: I think it’s changed quite a lot from when we first got in under [former tournament organiser] Freaks4U. They reached out to us about working together, so we did that for the entirety of 2023.
During that time, it was mostly me and Christian Vejvad [PR and marketing lead at Leagues Media] that handled most of it, so I was involved very much in the day-to-day business and mainly getting that stable. But as we’ve gotten further into this project, in 2024 mainly, we started to look at how we can actually grow it in a more sustainable way.
I think there are a lot of negative sentiments about the NLC, because of how it’s been run previously, and our main job I think is getting that confidence back in the NLC. I think the way we see that is with stability, because so far we’ve seen that a tournament organiser has either created the NLC or taken over the NLC, and then there’s been a whole lot of changes. And then a new organiser comes in after one and a half years, and we have the same changes.
And every single time, you lose teams, you lose talent, you lose players that don’t get transferred into the new system. So I think it’s very important for us to keep the continuity and there will be changes, but we’ll try to make it as inclusive as possible, to make everyone feel confident in the product and feel that it’s a stable place to be.
“I think there are a lot of negative sentiments about the NLC, because of how it’s been run previously, and our main job I think is getting that confidence back in the NLC. I think the way we see that is with stability.”
Frederik Hockauf, Leagues Media
I think you have gained the trust of the community again, from a journalist perspective. I’ve seen that teams and fans are really engaged, and there’s a lot of excitement. Of course it helps when the likes of Caedrel/Los Ratones, Perkz, Tolkin and many other well-known names get involved. How have you managed these big personalities coming in? What’s that been like?
Frederik: I think from behind the scenes there’s a lot of nervousness about all of the new eyeballs coming to the NLC. Can we live up to the expectations and make sure it’s a product that they feel is worth watching and engaging with?
So I think that’s been our main focus, to kind of rush to meet those expectations. And I think some of the influencers that have come in, for example IWillDominate and YamatoCannon from The Ruddy Sack, and Nord have also been pulling some very interesting people in. So from those two teams that have been in the league… I know that they have been toying with that idea for a long while, but I guess this might have been the thing that’s incentivized them to go all in on it.
So I think everyone is just really excited but also nervous about the responsibility that we now have. And if we mess up, everyone’s going to see it!
The NLC viewership in 2025 has been great so far. I think we all expected views would jump with Caedrel coming in, but with it being up 1000% in that first week, and peak viewership of 360,000 in the grand final, peak viewership has actually been higher than the LTA league in America.
Frederik: It’s absolutely crazy to start seeing our name on the same list as the LEC without having to scroll through like 20 pages!
While we are very happy about the current situation, our focus is very much on how we use this moment to solidify our position.
Before we’ve done that, I wouldn’t say I’m really happy. I’m excited about the possibilities, but also very keenly aware that if we don’t do anything, we might go back.
We might slide back to where we were, right, so we need to use the momentum we have to build.
Absolutely. On this, the NLC has partnered with brands like Arozzi and Kit Kat. With this increase in viewership now, will you be looking to engage with more brands in the future?
Christian: Yeah hopefully we will. But also, it’s also become more difficult, because right now we are looking into a global awareness instead of a Nordic awareness.
So we also hit that challenge when we got these streamers in. But yeah, it’s positive, we have good dialogues with the great brands out there, so hopefully we’ll show you some more soon.
Also, building on that momentum, you made an announcement late last year about the future of the NLC in 2025 and 2026, including roadshow events planned for 2026. I wasn’t personally expecting a great event like this in the UK so soon. Of course I understand there are other countries amongst the UK and Nordics and I’m sure they will get to have their events too, but what can we expect in the future, looking towards 2026?
Frederik: I think even though the segment in the format announcement was quite short announcing the roadshows, I think what we really want to focus on is the grassroots and how we build that in a sustainable way. I think there’s unfortunately a tendency in the other EMEA Regional Leagues (ERLs) to not focus that much on the groundwork, but I see that as a huge mistake, because how will you ever make your league sustainable if the player base keeps growing older without any new talent and new players coming up? And similarly, your viewer base will also shrink if you don’t have new people getting interested in it.
So we really want to solidify a strong grassroot network to build the future of the NLC. And one way we see of doing that is through active local community events, like the event here at Nottingham. We want there to be frequent possibilities for people to attend and get to know and interact with people in the community.
So we will be focusing a lot more on Nordic and UK and Ireland and Malta initiatives to make sure that we actually have a stronger connection to the community that is watching the games, by giving them these opportunities.
Of course, it will take time to build up to this, so this is the kickart, but it won’t be something that happens from one day to the other. We will need time to build it.
It’s something I need to remind myself to mention more, this isn’t just a UK, Ireland and Nordics league, it’s also for Malta! I’m half-Maltese myself, and I know we have Maltese org Project Eversio in the UKEL, so I look forward to seeing more integration there. I’m really glad you spoke about the importance of grassroots esports. We obviously have these National Leagues sitting below the NLC. How do you work with them and integrate with them?
Frederik: So right now we have a Discord where, from what I understand, is new compared to how Freaks4U and DreamHack [former NLC tournament organisers] did it in the past.
The first thing we really did when we took over was to try to gather all of these national tournament organisers in one place, and then try to work on clear communication. Because I think that has been one of the flaws from a tournament organisers perspective.
You don’t necessarily need to have all the answers, but you need to communicate that clearly. So first we gathered all of the tournament organisers, and then we just take it as it comes. We discuss, ‘we want to do this, how does that fit in with you?’
Then maybe we have something we think is really great, but it just doesn’t work, and I think that – and I’ve changed my mind a bit on this – for things to grow we need to be able to give more freedom to the National Leagues, so they can display the culture of the national league.
The UK has a very distinct culture – there’s a strong sports culture – and I think it’s very necessary to promote that if we want to have a league that can expand into the future, and the UK league (UKEL) standing on its own, along with all of the Nordic leagues.
So I think we need to give freedom and not just say, ‘it has to be this way’, but try to work with them so they can express their country in their own way.
“The UK has a very distinct culture – there’s a strong sports culture – and I think it’s very necessary to promote that if we want to have a league that can expand into the future, and the UK league (UKEL) standing on its own, along with all of the Nordic leagues.”
Frederik Hockauf, Leagues Media
That identity is really important, I think. There was one criticism of the NLC in the past, before you came on board as tournament organisers – that when the UK bridged with the Nordics to form the NLC, UK esports lost a bit of its identity in the process. But I think with the current UK orgs in the NLC like The Ruddy Sack, Bulldog, Venomcrest and Verdant, we’ve got a bit of that UK spirit back. And it’s great to have this LAN finals event in Nottingham. How has it been, has it met up to your expectations?
Christian: It’s hard to tell, we still have a day to go (interview recorded the day before the grand final). I I think, to be honest, it has been stressful! It was a very fast decision from our side [to run this event] but it’s so nice to see it live. It’s nice to gather all the people around it and to see all the Discord faces.
I think many of the people here really want to see people in person as well, so it’s nice to see that could finally happen. I also think it motivates everyone to keep these events going and make them even bigger.
100%. Shoutout to Nottingham Trent University for this studio, I’ve been saying to them for years we need bigger teams here at Confetti X and now we have them. Now, you are Leagues Media, but some reading this may be wondering, ‘weren’t they called Leagues.gg before?’ Maybe you can explain the difference in name and the different parts of your company.
Christian: We founded the Danish league back in 2017, and that’s where the Leagues.gg name came from originally. We just took it from there and expanded. And then we got the deal with Telia back then and we took over some of the other Nordics countries as well.
So that’s where Leagues.gg was founded, and that was because we ourselves needed a tool for handling these tournaments, to get the teams in and set the players for the next match and so on. So that was where Leagues.gg originated.
And so now you have Leagues Media, and from what I understand, Leagues.gg is a tournament platform, separate to the products you have like the NLC?
Christian: Yeah. Hopefully we will be able to have everything on Leagues.gg at some point, all these things like ticket sales etc. We hope that Leagues.gg will facilitate the entire ecosystem as well, so it will be the place to go when you need to find your next tournament to follow, or to watch the NLC.
Fantastic. What’s next for you guys? I know you mentioned 2026, but what long-term goals do you have in general? Will we see you branch out to other tournaments and games?
Christian: I cannot tell right now. For now we will focus on Riot Games titles, so we also look very much into Valorant. We also have that on a national level as well, working with the other national organisers there as well.
But at some point, yeah, we hope that Leagues.gg will become this ‘LinkedIn for gamers’, so eventually it will be everything, and it will hopefully be the place to go when you need a gaming partner, or you need a team, or need to participate in some sort of tournament.
Frederik: Just from an NLC perspective, I can’t yet say what it is, but I did mention that we are very much looking to building momentum, and we are looking into how we can cooperate with the current teams we have in our league to make it something that is quite unique, not only from an ERL standpoint, but I guess esports and Leagues esports in general.
That’s kind of the perspective we have – we want to be unique from the others, and hopefully you’ll soon see what we mean by that.
“For now we will focus on Riot Games titles, so we also look very much into Valorant. But at some point, we hope that Leagues.gg will become this ‘LinkedIn for gamers’, so eventually it will be everything, and it will hopefully be the place to go when you need a gaming partner, or you need a team, or need to participate in some sort of tournament.”
Christian Henriksen, Leagues Media
Well, that’s interesting, I’m excited for the future. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Frederik: I just want to thank Confetti X/Nottingham Trent University, they’ve been amazing to work with. I think the broadcast looks amazing and they’ve been great guys all around, so thanks to them.
Christian: And thank you for this interview as well. Hopefully we can come out and tell people what the action plan is this year.
You’re welcome. Thank you very much for the interview, Leagues Media has been great to work with, I wish you all the best and can’t wait to see what’s next.
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.
