The League of Legends World championships are the most popular finals for any Esport in the world. They have regularly drawn in tens of millions of live viewers for the last match up and even more throughout the tournament's various rounds, but this year saw the biggest numbers ever.
With an average viewership of 4.2 million people, a ridiculous 334 million tuned in throughout the competition's four weeks of gameplay. This is up from 288 million last year, which shows that the game's popularity is still expanding on a massive scale, year on year.
The final between SKT and Koo Tigers pulled in 36 million people throughout the various games, with a concurrent peak of 14 million viewers.
What's most impressive about this is that the landscape for comparable Esports titles is hotter than ever. DotA 2 is only getting bigger, with larger tournaments each year (and significantly bigger purses for the winners) and there are the likes of Heroes of the Storm, SMITE, Strife and a number of upcoming MOBA/FPS mashups.
Clearly more people are learning about League of Legends and still see it as the dominant MOBA out there.
Do you play? Do you watch? Do you care?