MSI 2024 in Chengdu broke every viewership record for MSI so far, with an average of 1 million viewers and a peak of just over 2.8 million. Changes in the format for MSI 2024 were reportedly well-received and will be retained for future championships. The Esports department also announced their intention to align League's professional scene structure more closely with VALORANT's VCT.
Riot Esports shared the next phase of these changes: a unified split structure for MSI, LCK, LCS, and LEC, a third international event added to the year, and proposed changes to the leagues in the APAC and Americas regions.
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Regional split structures will be refined going forward. Each region will open the year with new tournaments or tournament splits, followed by two slightly shorter splits throughout the year, culminating in MSI and a regional championship. Champions from each region will be crowned at the regional league championship rather than at the end of each split. As always, the season will culminate with Worlds.
Riot is adding a third event to the 2025 calendar. Each regional league will have a single team qualify for the international event in March. These teams will compete against each other in a round-robin format, followed by a bracket stage to crown a champion. This tournament will also serve as a platform to experiment with different competitive formats.
The first change is to reduce the number of teams in Tier 1 to strengthen team participation in the new Global Revenue Pool. With fewer teams to share revenue, all Tier 1 teams will see an increase in revenue per team.
The second change, starting in 2025, is the consolidation of the Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Japan, Vietnam, and Oceania leagues into a single multi-region league. Similarly, the LCS, CBLOL, and LLA leagues will merge into a single Americas League. As a result, the total number of North American teams is likely to be reduced, concentrating player talent and increasing the overall quality of competition.
