LEC Versus 2026 viewership drops by 33% since Los Ratones elimination

LoL Contributor

Publish Date: February 27, 2026

Los Ratones was the driving force behind the viewership of the LEC Versus 2026. With their elimination from the LEC Versus playoffs, fans raised the question of how that would affect the interest for the European championship. Now that the playoffs are well underway, the results are in: many viewers have left alongside Los Ratones.

The LEC’s 33% drop in viewership in the playoffs

Most watched regular season games	Viewership	Most watched playoffs games (days 1 to 5)	Viewership
VIT vs LR	592k	VIT vs KC	397k
G2 vs LR	585k	G2 vs KC	386k
G2 vs FNC	582k	FNC vs NAVI	377k

Note: The third most watched regular season game was G2 Esports vs Fnatic. While not appearing tied to Los Ratones, this was in fact the series that decided LR’s fate. The viewership still came from Caedrel’s fan base.

There are still three playoffs matches to be played. The grand finals is among them, and the matches will be played in an arena, so they should generate more attention. Still, it’s very unusual for every single playoffs game to not even come close to the top 5. Especially when all regular season games were Best of 1s.

The peak viewership went down from 591,961 in the regular season to 397,500 in the playoffs. The number of average viewers for the playoffs is only 254,899, while it’s 306,951 over the entire split. The popular playoffs games still bring up the overall average, but that interest isn’t consistent.

What’s even more striking, though, is the regional viewership. The peaks from the French and Spanish audiences remained roughly the same during the playoffs. Respectively rallying behind Karmine Corp and Movistar Koi, those two fanbases retained their reason to watch. However, the English peak went down by 67%. From 388k, it’s now 127k in the playoffs.

The LEC viewership is low for playoffs matches between teams with smaller fanbases. Image Source: Wojciech Wandzel / Riot Games

Is the LEC losing views compared to 2025?

Statistic	LEC Winter 2025	LEC Versus 2026
Peak viewership	801k	592k
Peak viewership (without finals)	597k	592k
Peak regular season viewership	592k	592k
Peak playoffs viewership (without finals)	597k	397k
Average viewers	328k	307k

In 2026, Los Ratones allowed the LEC’s viewership to remain in line with 2025. Now that they’re gone, the numbers are falling apart. Even though the drivers of 2025 in KC and MKOI are still in the running with G2 alongside them, they’re failing to retain the attention they got last year.

There are three possible parameters at play behind this.

Last year, KC gave European fans a new hope and some fresh air. In the end, European performances at internationals remained subpar. To make matters worse, it’s a G2 that looked shaky during the regular season that is now dominating everyone again. This is not encouraging for the level of Europe.
LR gave people a taste of something new, something more lively. Now that it’s gone, a part of the viewer base lost interest in the LEC alongside.
The schedule didn’t help. Four of the six playoffs matchdays were weekdays, against only two last year.

Featured Image Source: Wojciech Wandzel / Riot Games