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- LoL Worlds 2025
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The World Championship, the pinnacle of League of Legends competition, is back. And this time, the LoL Worlds prize pool is significantly higher than ever before.
In March, the Head of Esports for League of Legends announced that the prize pool for First Stand would be 1 million USD, and that MSI would award 2 million USD. He then followed up by saying that the 2025 LoL Worlds prize pool would be 5 million dollars.
This is the baseline prize pool. As a reminder, since 2016, to the League of Legends World Championship prize pool is also added 25% of the sales from all Championship items over the period of Worlds.
That means the Championship skins, the Championship ward, as well as the Battlepass sales. Riot has stopped communicating how much this value amounted to since 2019, but in 2016 through 2018, these sales added between 2.8 and 4.2 million dollars to the LoL Worlds prize pool each year. This year, the skin contributing to the LoL Worlds prize pool is the new Trials of Twilight Xin Zhao skin. The Trials of Twilight: Worlds Pass sales will also add to the prize pool.
So we can expect the effective 2025 LoL Worlds prize pool to be around $8 to $9 million.
In addition to all of this, all teams receive 25% of the sales from the esports content themed after them. That means that if you buy your team’s World icon while the tournament is going on, 25% of the money you’ve spent goes directly to them.
But it also applies to World Champion skins! The team that wins Worlds will receive its set of skins the next year, and the sales from these skins will directly benefit them.
A kind of delayed prize revenue, of sorts!
However, there is one caveat there: 25% of the sales from World Champion skins go to the team that they represent and to their league. This means that 25% of the revenue from T1 Yone is split between Faker, T1, and the LCK, at an unknown rate.
Riot Games has now shared how the prize pool money will be distributed among the participating teams this year!
Here’s how the Worlds 2025 prize pool will be distributed (and on the side, what that would mean for a prize pool of 9 million dollars):
| Place | Team | Prize Pool % | Prize in USD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | T1 | 20% | $1,800,000 |
| 2nd | KT Rolster | 16% | $1,440,000 |
| 3rd – 4th | Gen.G, Top Esports | 8% | $720,000 |
| 5th – 8th | Hanwha Life Esports, CTBC Flying Oyster, G2 Esports, Anyone’s Legend | 6% | $540,000 |
| 9th – 11th | FlyQuest, Bilibili Gaming, Moviestar KOI | 3.5% | $315,000 |
| 12th – 14th | Team Secret Whales, Vivo Keyd Stars, 100 Thieves | 2.5% | $225,000 |
| 15th – 16th | Fnatic, PSG Talon | 2.25% | $202,500 |
| 17th | Invictus Gaming | 1.5% | $135,000 |
With the LoL Worlds prize pool being at a baseline of 5 million dollars, the winnings at stake are massively higher than any previous year.
For comparison, here’s the LoL Worlds prize pool history:
| Year | Prize Pool | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | $99,500 | |
| 2012 | $2,000,000 | |
| 2013 | $2,050,000 | |
| 2014 | $2,130,000 | |
| 2015 | $2,130,000 | |
| 2016 | $5,070,000 | Base prize pool of $2,225,000 PLUS $3,845,000 following the introduction of the revenue sharing from sales of esports content |
| 2017 | $4,596,591 | Base prize pool of $2,225,000 PLUS $2,221,591 |
| 2018 | $6,425,000 | Base prize pool of $2,225,000 PLUS $4,200,000 after introduction of battle passes, with the Worlds battle pass now also benefiting from revenue sharing |
| 2019 | $2,225,000 | Note: From 2019 onwards, Riot Games has no longer disclosed how much money the sales of digital goods contributed to the LoL Worlds prize pool, so these numbers will only represent the baseline amount. |
| 2020 | $2,225,000 | |
| 2021 | $2,225,000 | |
| 2022 | $2,225,000 | |
| 2023 | $2,225,000 | |
| 2024 | $2,225,000 | |
| 2025 | $5,000,000 |
While the LoL Worlds prize pool has regularly gone up, the winner’s share of it has decreased every year. The 20% it’s at now is down from an initial 50%.
| Year | Winner’s share |
|---|---|
| 2011 | 50.25% |
| 2012 | 50% |
| 2013 | 48.78% |
| 2014 and 2015 | 46.95% |
| 2016 | 40% |
| 2017 to 2019 | 37.5% |
| 2020 | 25% |
| 2021 and 2022 | 22% |
| 2023 to 2025 | 20% |
Obviously, this isn’t Riot giving less money, it’s just giving more to the teams scoring lower (and having more than 16 teams participate). We also can’t forget that the winners also get their skins’ share since 2016, adding to these numbers. But it’s interesting.
So, while we won’t know the exact number, this year’s LoL Worlds prize pool starts at a whooping $5 million!
Who’s going to with LoL Worlds 2025?
The Worlds 2025 schedule kicks in just a week on October 14th, and you won’t want to miss it. For an overview of the event go to our LoL Worlds preview.
Featured image: Coach KkOma and Faker of T1 lift the trophy after victory at the LoL Worlds 2024 Finals on November 02, 2024 in London. (Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
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