E-sports have been growing for years and are becoming more and more professional. The best example is League of Legends, which set a record for viewers in 2019 and hosted a world championship in 2020 despite Corona. But not every game is so successful. What is LoL different?
This is the situation: E-sports has become a huge market and continues to grow:
- According to Statista Around 223 million people enthusiastically watched esports in 2020, while another 272 million tuned in irregularly.
- Sales related to esports rose 15.7% to $ 1.1 billion in 2020. The prognosis is increasing (via Newzoo). This is also due to the fact that more and more online games are holding tournaments and winning sponsors and advertisers for them.
The biggest games in terms of viewership and prize money are LoL, DOTA 2 and Fortnite. But they differ very clearly in their style and the implementation of their tournaments.
While LoL has grown with esports and became more and more professional, Fortnite in particular tried to push the tournaments by offering high prize money. Also with DOTA 2, the prize money in relation to the number of spectators and the structure of the tournaments is significantly higher than with LoL.
But more money doesn’t necessarily mean more success. Fortnite has recently received criticism from professionals who are concerned about esports. We at MeinMMO therefore look at how LoL deals with e-sports and what makes it different from the competition.
LoL dominates with audience and event character
How is the situation at LoL? League of Legends has a well-organized professional scene. There are clear leagues in different regions that are played in spring and summer. These leagues take place offline, so that the teams meet on site and play against each other (due to Corona, however, everything is currently being played online).
The best teams from each region are then sent to a World Cup in the fall. The strongest team in the world is determined there.
The huge events are sponsored by well-known brands such as MasterCard, Bose, Mercedes, Red Bull and KIA. Even skins and merchandise were implemented with the luxury brand Louis Vuitton. The whole structure is reminiscent of professional sport, where sponsors also play an important role.
What are the audience numbers at LoL? In 2019, almost 4 million people watched the Worlds semi-finals at the same time. The viewers from China and from certain smaller platforms are still excluded. If you factor them in, the numbers get even bigger:
- The 2020 finals are said to have 45.95 million people at the top watched at the same time (via Sportsvideo.org). For comparison: The Super Bowl 2019 was watched by around 160 million people at the top (via Statista).
- In total, more than 1 billion hours of LoL were watched live during Worlds 2020. The recordings were not included.
But the general league operation is already attracting massive numbers of spectators. An average of 231,000 people watched the first LEC weekend from January 22nd to 24th. That was a new record for the European league.
LoL succeeds where many other games fail – successful spin-offs
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LoL tournaments impress with their event character: Another special feature of League of Legends is the event character in tournaments.
Apart from 2020, the world championship filled huge halls and offered not only exciting matches, but something special every year.
In 2014 the band Imagine Dragons performed with their song Warriors. In 2018, Riot Games brought the virtual band K / DA to life on stage. The opening ceremonies of LoL Worlds are a bit like the halftime shows that are held at the Super Bowl.
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What does LoL do with the offspring? In addition to the professional league, there are numerous amateur and junior leagues and tournaments. In Germany, for example, there is the Prime League, which is located just below the LEC.
Teams like Gamerlegion, Mousesports, but also second teams of the big teams like Schalke 04 Prime and SK Gaming Prime fight there. Players from the teams regularly make the leap into the professional scene.
In America, on the other hand, a new tournament was introduced to make the region more competitive. Amateur and Academy teams meet at the LCS Proving Grounds to determine the best team outside the LCS.
In addition to these fixed leagues, there are thousands of amateur tournaments and also the 5v5 ranking in which teams can prove themselves.
LoL has “low” prize money at the World Cup
The prize money for the World Cup was 2.5 million dollars last year, the lowest amount since 2013. But this prize money is not necessarily what counts for many players:
- In the LoL leagues, the teams undertake to pay a minimum fee for each registered player.
- Through promotional deals, players earn extra money.
- Most of the professionals are active on Twitch / YouTube and have considerable viewership there due to their popularity.
- Even in league operations there is prize money that is distributed over the course of the season. The professionals also earn a proportion of this.
Fortnite creates e-sports out of necessity, has high prize money
This is the situation at Fortnite: While in LoL mainly teams with big names and sponsors in the background start, the Fortnite Champion Series also included players who had no organization in the background:
- So far there is no classic league system like in LoL. Instead, you could qualify for the solo and duo tournaments in regional online events.
- Over 40 million players are said to have participated in the qualifications (via NYTimes).
This ultimately led to the fact that young and unknown players won, while the avoidable professionals and streamers fell by the wayside. Of the $ 30 million in prize money, 3 million went to winner Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, who was then 16 years old.
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How many are watching Fortnite? The final of the World Cup 2019 was watched by 2.33 million people in the lead (via ESports Charts), with the exception of China and smaller streaming providers. The number of viewers from China is likely to be significantly lower because Fortnite is particularly successful in the West.
If you look at the tournament winners, there are only 6 Asian players in the final 100. This is rather unusual for esports, which are often dominated by Chinese or Korean teams at international tournaments.
What’s the problem with Fortnite? The entire tournament series looked a bit out of the ground, also because Fortnite is not a classic esports game:
- There is no even situation on the battlefield and too many variables that can lead to elimination.
- While in CS: GO, DOTA and LoL the personal skill counts above all, in Fortnite it is more clever to stay out of everything in order to survive as long as possible.
- In addition, illegal agreements are possible as to who lands where and whether or not to attack each other. This is much easier and more difficult to follow with individual players than in 5v5 matches in LoL or other games. Speeches were even accused of the world champion.
Fortnite has now also greatly reduced the prize money. While there was still $ 30 million in 2019, only 3 million were played in 2020. For the time being, no prize money was announced for 2021.
This is particularly difficult for Fortnite professionals because they have no regulated leagues and income. There is a promotion of young talent at some esports organizations, but not sponsored by Epic itself.
Dota 2 also attracts large sums of money, but gets fewer viewers
Such is the situation in DOTA 2: DOTA 2 also offers similarly large sums for tournaments as Fortnite. Valve organizes “The International” every year. It’s like the world championship. You can qualify for this by taking part in certain tournaments that are held throughout the year. These tournaments also take place offline.
The most striking thing about “The International” is the prize money. That started at 1.6 million in 2019 and was then boosted by crowdfunding from the community. The total prize money was 33.3 million.
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How many are watching Dota 2? The most watched event in Dota 2 so far is The International 2019 with 1.97 million viewers in Peak (via ESports Charts). Here, too, viewers from China and certain smaller platforms are excluded.
- So although the prize pool is bigger, only about half as many viewers watch the tournament.
- The event with the second most viewers, The International 2018, only had 1.21 million viewers at the top and is even partially behind regional championships in LoL.
What is the problem with DOTA 2? So even though DOTA 2 has bigger prize money, they end up watching significantly less.
On the one hand, this will be due to the fact that it actually has a smaller number of players than LoL. While LoL was one of the most popular PC games worldwide in 2019 with 8 million simultaneously active players, Dota only came to 700,000 (via Steamcharts).
On the other hand, DOTA 2 lacked the classic leagues for a long time, which mean that people can watch regularly and on the same channels. The leagues were not introduced until 2021, but are a bit smaller than LoL (via Liquipedia).
DOTA 2 bans former world champions for life
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This is what makes LoL so successful
This is what makes LoL so successful: LoL manages to make the most professional impression despite the relatively small prize money:
- The league system can become routine for spectators. So you can admire your favorite team every weekend, similar to what is the case with the Bundesliga, for example.
- Because Riot Games itself looks after the leagues, attention is now paid to professional contracts and remuneration.
- There are leagues to promote young talent and official amateur tournaments.
- The final of the world championship has an event character that is comparable to major sports events.
- You have the feeling that the events are improving from year to year.
Other titles such as CS: GO, FIFA or Smite cannot keep up, although they are also active in e-sports. The closest to the LoL system is the direct competitor DOTA 2, which is a bit behind its big brother.
How is e-sports developing in general? While the 3 games presented in the article dominate here in the West, mobile games have become increasingly popular with all viewers in recent months.
After the World Championships 2019 and 2020 in LoL, the PUBG Mobile Championship is currently 3rd in the ranking for the most simultaneous viewers (via ESports Charts).
The shooter Free Fire, one of the biggest games in the world, also made it into the top 5 most watched events and is even ahead of the Fortnite World Cup.
Even if these games are often ridiculed, the mobile market has a large target group. Riot Games has now recognized this and will also be holding tournaments with their LoL mobile Wild Rift in the future. The upcoming Patch 2.1 with the Spectator Mode should lay the first foundation for this.
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