For those that don’t already know, League of Legends is a mighty popular multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA, video game. The game is so popular that the developer, Riot Games, hosts championships where the top teams battle it out to determine who truly is the best. Providing data that once and for all proves that eSports can be popular, Riot’s released some interesting viewership numbers for the League of Legends Season 2 World Championships which the University of South California recently hosted. As it turns out, more than 8.2 million unique viewers tuned in to see the action.
GameSpot explains:
Riot is reporting that at peak, over 1,154,000 unique people watched the event online, not counting TV numbers. More than 8,282,000 unique viewers tuned in total via online and TV combined, with 2,402,225 people watching through Korean and Chinese TV.
According to Riot Games, this makes it the most watched eSports event of all time with almost twice the number of unique viewers as Major League Gaming’s June event. Considering that this record has been broken a number of times recently, this particular milestone might not stand for long, but it definitely points to a major increase in eSports viewership.
(via GameSpot, image via yxxxx2003)
- Riot takes their events seriously
- The most hardcore pro gaming franchises
- You can make millions playing MOBAs
