LoL Esports — 2026 Schedule

How the 2026 LoL esports season works

Pro League of Legends runs through six regional leagues: the LCK (Korea), LPL (China), LEC (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), LCS (North America), CBLOL (Brazil) and LCP (Asia-Pacific). The headline change for 2026 is in the Americas. The combined LTA league lasted only one season, and the LCS and CBLOL are back as separate leagues with their own champions. Latin America was folded into both: LYON plays in the LCS and Leviatán in the CBLOL as partner teams.

Every league plays three splits, and each split feeds a different international event. The first split sends teams to First Stand, the second to the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), and the third decides Worlds. In the LCS, Summer ends with the LCS Championship in Atlanta on October 3-4, and the top three Summer teams go to Worlds.

Two rules shape every series. Fearless Draft is still in use, so a champion picked in one game of a series can't be picked again in the later games. The new First Selection rule lets the team holding the choice pick either its map side or its draft position, and the opponent gets the other.

The biggest LoL events of 2026

• First Stand (March 16-22, São Paulo, Brazil): eight teams, every match best-of-five. Bilibili Gaming beat G2 Esports 3-1, the LPL's first international title since MSI 2023.
• MSI (June 28 to July 12, Daejeon, South Korea): Hanwha Life Esports beat Bilibili Gaming 3-2 in the final, giving Korea its third straight MSI.
• Worlds 2026 (October 15 to November 14, United States): 19 teams play a Play-In, a five-round Swiss stage and best-of-five knockouts. The Swiss stage, quarterfinals and semifinals are at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, Texas. The final is at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on November 14. T1 come in as three-time defending champions.

With the regional seasons finished, Worlds is the only major LoL event left in 2026.

Where to watch LoL esports for free

Every official League of Legends broadcast is free. lolesports.com has the full schedule, live streams and match VODs for every league. Each league also streams on its own Twitch and YouTube channels, including twitch.tv/lck, twitch.tv/lpl, twitch.tv/lec and twitch.tv/lcs. International events like Worlds run on Riot's official LoL Esports channels.

Riot leans heavily on co-streaming. For 2026 the LEC alone lists official co-streamers in more than a dozen languages, including team channels from G2, Fnatic and Team Vitality, plus partner broadcasts in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese and other languages. Full games go up on YouTube shortly after each broadcast.

What time LoL esports is on in Eastern Time

• LCK: matches start at 5 PM Korea time, which is 4 AM ET during daylight time and 3 AM ET once US clocks fall back on November 1.
• LPL: China is 12 hours ahead of ET until November 1 (13 hours after), so evening matches in China air overnight or in the early morning ET.
• LEC: Berlin is six hours ahead of ET, so European evening broadcasts fall in late morning to early afternoon ET.
• LCS: weekend afternoons in North American time. The 2026 LCS Championship games begin at 4 PM ET.
• Worlds 2026: held in the US for the first time since 2022, so most matches air at reasonable US hours. Allen is on Central Time, one hour behind ET.

Tips for following LoL esports

Because of Fearless Draft, games four and five of a best-of-five often feature picks you'll rarely see elsewhere, so don't skip the end of a long series. In the Worlds Swiss stage, three wins puts a team through and three losses knocks it out, so an early loss doesn't end anyone's run. The final in Brooklyn is on November 14, two weeks after the US time change, so double-check start times that week.