The League of Extraordinary Viewers

by
December 3, 2014

The numbers are in for the League of Legends Worlds and they are staggering, and not just the $1 million prize pool. Riot Games, developers of LoL, posted the viewership numbers for their world finals. The event itself was spread out over 15 days of competition and totaled 100 hours of gameplay to decide the champion.

According to Riot, the finals were broadcasted in 19 different languages utilizing 40 different casters and play-by-play partners. The grand finals between Samsung White and  Star Horn Royal Club was watched by a peak of 11.2 million viewers, the equivalent of almost all of the censured population of Ohio. Put a different way, it was as if Oregon, Oklahoma and Connecticut combined to tune in simultaneously.

Throughout the road to the grand finals, LoL Worlds caught 27 million unique viewers and 288 million impressions to see Samsung White win it all. The 179 million hour total of esports watching outpaces the 151ish million hours of the video Gangnam Style by Psy which recently broke YouTube. This year’s fall classic went a full seven games and average 13.9 million viewers, though the final out of game seven was viewed by 27.8 million people. The numbers between esports and baseball are suddenly comparable, not to mention the sold-out 45,000 seat Sangam Stadium venue.

On Riot’s website, dating back to January of this year, they claimed over 67 million users played LoL every month. Of them, 27 million play daily and Riot’s servers carry the load for 7.5 million people at peak hours. The world’s most popular video game is showing no signs of slowing down. Who else ready to tailgate for an esports match? If it’s too cold outside, how about a BarCraft instead?

(Header photo via Riotgames.com)

 

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You can catch David spouting off about baseball, soccer, esports and other things by following him on twitter, @davidwiers.

2 Comments
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Jackowitz
11 years ago

Always happy to see hashtag esports coverage. SSBM is the GoaT though; I expect APEX2015 analysis from techgraphs

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David WiersMember since 2016
11 years ago
Reply to  Jackowitz

Can’t say I follow the Smash Bros scene much, I know the EG team is pretty stacked, but beyond that most of it eludes me. For me, the best competitive game was either Brood War or CS 1.5/1.6. I loved staying up late watching WCG, EWCS, CPLs and DHs.

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