“Mickey Mouse tournament” – KeSPA Cup 2025 to be broadcast on Disney+

Darragh Harbinson, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 19/11/2025

The Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) will once again host the KeSPA Cup, a pre-season invitation tournament made up of LCK and other invited teams.

However, the offseason tournament has caught unusual attention upon its announcement, as it will be streamed exclusively on Disney+.

The news is another example of conventional broadcasters being interested in Korean League of Legends, following the broadcast of the LCK finals on Korean terrestrial television earlier in the year.

Disney+ association draws community quips

The news that the tournament would be streamed on Disney+ has drawn new attention to KeSPA Cup 2025.

The association with Disney, combined with the low status of the tournament, has made the community share several quips that the tournament is an official “Mickey Mouse tournament.”

Fans have also jokingly quipped that the tournament will be biased towards the Korean organisation, Dplus Kia, implying that ‘Dplus’ stands for Disney+.

While the D actually comes from Dplus KIA’s old man, of DAMWON Gaming, the community couldn’t resist the open goal of a joke.

KeSPA Cup 2025 teams and format

Dates: December 6 – December 14

The KeSPA Cup 2025 will feature:

• BNK FEARX
• DN Freecs
• Dplus KIA
• DRX
• Gen.G
• Hanwha Life
• KT Rolster
• NS RedForce
• OK BRION
• T1
• Cloud9
• Team Liquid
• Team Japan
• Team Vietnam

The 10 LCK teams will be bolstered by Team Liquid and C9 from the LCS, as well as invited international rosters from Japan and Vietnam.

The tournament will feature preliminary Bo1 groups, leading into a Bo3 ‘main ‘breakout’/tiebreaker stage for second-placed teams, then six-team Best of 5 playoffs.

The preliminary round, lasting from December 6 – December 8, is broken into three groups in a Round Robin format.

Max ‘Atlus’ Anderson and Wolf ‘Wolf’ Schröder will cast the English broadcast of the tournament.

The tournament may prove valuable to the Western teams selected to participate; Western fans have celebrated their teams’ inclusions in the hope that greater exposure to LCK competitors can raise the level of the teams involved.

However, KeSPA Cups have traditionally not featured full-strength teams, with academy stand-ins common.

Will the new streaming deal attract greater attendance from top players? We’ll see (on Disney+).

Darragh Harbinson, Senior Editor

Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.

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