This morning Major League Gaming announced that its MLG Columbus event “shattered previous MLG records” with more than 22.5 million stream viewers. To put this statistic in perspective, that is “nearly double the reported 11.4 million NFL.com video streams consumed during the weekend of the 2011 NFL Draft.”
In addition to the 22.5 million who watched the event from home, more than 16,000 eSports fans showed up in person to watch the event live. Out of those 16,000, 1,300 were actual competitors.
What’s exciting is that MLG Columbus was only the second stop on this year’s Pro Circuit season. There is still the events at Anaheim, CA (July 29-31), Raleigh, NC (August 26-28), Orlando, FL (October 14-16) and the national championship in Providence, RI (November 18-20) to look forward to. Hopefully this view count will continue to grow making 2011 the biggest year for North American eSports.
Source: MLG