Where eSports landed..

League of Legends World Championship

Today started the annual League of Legends World Championship, which made me thinking about how far eSports got in the past years.
A good couple of years back, when 'gaming' and eSports were still in a bad light, and mostly considered as a non-serious thing, nobody would have expected that eSports are going to fill whole stadiuns, fascinating dozens of people all over the world.
Many dreams and RocketJumps VGHS made our hearts beat faster, but it stayed surreal.
Indeed, things got true.

Here are a few impressions about where this path started.

Season One - Dreamhack Summer 2011

The first World Championship took place at the Dreamhack in Sweden.
League of Legends was barely known at this point, and just another game at the dreamhack; also the players filled the same spot as every other participant at the LAN party.
The tournament itself was more like a event where some kids could earn money playing a game they really like.

Teams: 8
Winner: Fnatic (EUW)

Price pool: 100,000 $
Viewers: 1.6 million (peak: 210.000)

Season Two - Los Angeles

In 2012 the World Championship moved to L.A. .
With their worlds at the Staples Center, this event got its own stage.
According to Riot, they spent about 5 million US$ for their second League of Legend season.
The final was cast in 13 languages and with about 8 million viewers the LoL World Championships became the most watched eSport.

Teams: 12
Winner: Taipei Assassins (China)

Price pool: 2.000.000 $
Viewers: 8 million (peak: 1.1million)

Season Three - Los Angeles

Once again the worlds took place at Staples Center, L.A.
All 18.118 seats were sold out within an hour after the ticket start for the finals.
Again, the number of viewer broke the record for the most watched eSport, and was even higher than the viewer of the 2013 NBA Finals. - See how far this got.

Teams: 14
Winner: SK Telecom T1 (South Korea)

Price pool: 2.050.000 $
Viewers: 32 million (peak: 8.5 million)

Season Four - South Korea

In 2014 the World Championships were moving to China and South Korea, where the finals took place at the Seoul World Cup Stadium. Their fucking football stadion. They really stepped up their game.

The finals were opened by an amazing ceremony, and closed by a concert from Imagine Dragons who, in addition, contributed a song for this tournament: 'warriors'.
The event got cast in 19 languages.

Teams: 16
Winner: Samsung Galaxy White (South Korea)

Price pool: 2.130.000 $
Viewers: 27 million (peak: 11 million)

Warriors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmI_Ndrxy14

Season Five - West Europe

Last season the World Championship took place in different cities in West Europe, Paris, London, Brussels and Berlin, where the finals got broadcast from the Mercedes-Benz-Arena.
The Tickets were sold out in a couple of minutes.
The stage lightning was really awesome. They had LED plates everywhere, which formed spots for the player as they went on stage at the opening ceremony, what made the whole thing looking damn futuristic.

Teams: 16
Winner: SK Telecom T1 (South Korea)

Price pool: 2.130.000 $
Viewers: 36 million (peak: 14 million)

Season Six - North America

This year the World Championsip takes place in North America and leads the finals straight back to the Staples Center, which is, who had guessed it, sold out.

Again, as already in 2014, a song was published for worlds called 'Ignite', contributed by Zedd.
Ignite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zasx9hjo4WY

Fun fact: At the end of Season 4 Riot released the Championship Shyvanna skin, where Imagine Dragons contributed a song. This year a song by Zedd got published, and the Championship Zed skin will get released at the end of this season. We see what you did there.