The Swiss Stage of Worlds 2025 concluded last Saturday with T1 defeating Movistar KOI to qualify for the quarterfinals. This match is so far the most-watched of the tournament, peaking at 2,564,855 viewers according to Esports Charts. T1 played five best-of series during the Swiss Stage and one best-of-five in the Play-In Phase, five of these series are the most-watched of Worlds.

Rounding out the top five, all the other matches share a common factor: the reigning double world champions. In second place is T1 versus Invictus Gaming in the Play-In, followed by their match against Gen.G, then the victory over 100 Thieves, and finally the loss to CTBC Flying Oyster. The first four matches all surpassed two million viewers, with the last reaching 1.9 million.

A slight drop in interest

To put it in perspective, compared to last year, the Swiss Stage attracted slightly fewer viewers in 2025 than in 2024. Last year, the most-watched series of the Swiss Stage was the clash between G2 Esports and T1, peaking at over 3 million viewers. Next was T1 versus Top Esports, which drew more than 2.8 million viewers—still higher than this year’s top-viewed series. In third place was T1 versus Bilibili Gaming, with over 2.5 million viewers.

This slight drop in viewership can be explained by several factors. The qualification and elimination BO3s didn’t really feature heavyweight matchups — T1 only faced 100 Thieves and Movistar KOI. There were close and meaningful series, but they mostly involved Chinese teams, such as the final match between Bilibili Gaming and TES. And as a reminder, all of these statistics exclude Chinese streaming platforms, which significantly reduces the overall numbers.

The T1 dependence

Year after year, the viewership numbers at Worlds are heavily shaped by one team — the most decorated in the history of the game, T1. Yet every year, T1 comes dangerously close to falling early. Last year, they only qualified as the LCK’s fourth seed after a surprising close call against KT Rolster. This year, they once again arrived as the fourth seed and had to fight through the Play-In stage against Invictus Gaming.

This raises the question of what Worlds viewership would look like without the most-followed team in the scene. At some point, T1 will exit the tournament early — and this year, once again, they only scraped through at 3–2, meaning elimination was a very real possibility. Without T1, viewership would almost certainly drop, prompting broader questions about the game’s overall appeal and the long-term strength of its esports ecosystem.