Today Major League Gaming released the viewer numbers from its grand finals in Providence, RI. Keeping up with the trend of breaking the previous MLG event’s records, MLG Providence pulled in “an all-time high of 241,000 peak concurrent online viewers and more than 3.6 million hours of video were consumed over the weekend. Viewers from 175 countries tuned in to the final tournament, the highest number of countries to date. The top five countries watching included the USA, Germany, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Over the 2011 Season, more than 15 million hours of video were consumed during Pro Circuit weekends.”
What is even more interesting is just how big 2011 was for Major League Gaming and eSports. According to MLG, “the 2011 Pro Circuit season was the largest season in eSports history, reaching more than 3.5 million unique stream viewers during combined Pro Circuit weekends.”
MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni commentated on these numbers saying:
Our viewership numbers this year have been staggering, and MLG now pulls in larger audiences than several traditional television cable networks. Our live streams of the Pro Circuit National Championships garnered more 18-24 male viewers than Comedy Central, MTV, TBS, and FX draw in an average quarter hour and nearly as many as Adult Swim.
To show just how amazing 2011 was for eSports and MLG, MLG released this cool little infograph (below).
It’s important to remember that this was MLG’s first season using StarCraft II as a main title. Imagine how big it’s going to be after MLG increases their budget to account for all this new growth. With continued support and hard work from the community we can make 2012 an even bigger year for eSports than 2011.