Honor of Kings KPL Grand Finals 2025 is officially the largest esports tournament in history

The Grand Finals for the Honor of Kings Kings Professional League was a particular evening for not simply Chinese language esports — however esports as a complete. 

What began as a humble esports scene 10 years in the past has grow to be one of many largest on the earth. With extra followers than ever earlier than, the Grand Finals towards All Players and Wolves Esports happened on the Fowl’s Nest over the weekend. 

The Fowl’s Nest is one among China’s most iconic stadiums — it is the place the Beijing Olympics 2022 happened. On November eighth, it was the place two Honor of Kings groups duked it out on cell phones on stage. 

Tencent wished to rejoice the expansion over the past decade in a grand means. The opening ceremony included eye-popping visuals, dwell performances, and dramatic movies that confirmed off the true scale of the Honor of Kings scene in China. It was an expertise that felt much more intense than the Half Time Present on the Tremendous Bowl — and it had the gang to match. 
Honor of Kings units Guiness World Document for esports
Throughout the opening ceremony forward of the Grand Finals motion, the Guiness World Data offered the Honor of Kings with an official plaque recognizing it because the most-attended esports event in historical past. 

There have been over 62,000 followers in attendance — and much more would have packed into the Fowl’s Nest if the gross sales hadn’t been reduce off to these explicit seats. 

For perception, slightly over 65,700 folks attended the Tremendous Bowl in 2025, placing Honor of Kings on the similar reputation and mainstream attraction as soccer for Chinese language followers. 

League of Legends’ World Championship 2025 was taking place in Chengdu, China concurrently to the KPL Grand Finals. Whereas extra well-known all through the world, with tens of millions of peak viewers on-line, it solely had 18,000 dwell viewers. This speaks to HoK’s targets of interesting to offline audiences as properly, one thing most esports scenes have not grasped as properly. 

Stated Head of KPL Huang Cheng: “The viewers who purchased the ticket for Fowl’s Nest match — 85% of the tickets had been offered exterior of Beijing. Which means native followers solely make up 15% of spectators.

“I noticed posts all throughout social media that followers had been very excited earlier than the ultimate match. Many feedback from all completely different locations and nations. They got here to Beijing — even taking connecting flights — to come back right here and watch the sport.

“We should have created esports video games as an offline occasion that’s well-received by followers.”

In line with Cheng, a part of that offline success comes from assist from the federal government and the sport’s in-game community-oriented activations. 

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