Major League Gaming Reports 2.6 Million Spectators During Weekend Tournaments

Competitive gaming (a.k.a. e-sports), is continuously growing in popularity. Case in point: Major League Gaming held a handful of tournaments this past weekend, and while many people showed up physically to the 2013 Winter Championship in Texas, even more people streamed the events online — 2.6 million people to be exact.

The three-day event featured three tournaments with games consisting of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, League of Legends, and StarCraft II. Thousands of spectators show up at the event, but tons of fans live stream the event on their computer. This year there were 2.6 million fans streaming the event throughout the weekend.

However, this doesn't break any records, and it doesn't come close to the numbers of last year's tournament in June when a total of 4.7 million tuned in to live stream the event. Still, that's an increase of what the numbers were back in 2011, with only a half-million viewers tuning in to watch some competitive gaming.

The next major tournament coming up is in April, where Call of Duty: Black Ops II will be the main event with $1 million worth of prizes for the top placing teams. That event will be hosted by Microsoft and Activision, and will be presented by Major League Gaming, along with "Xbox." If you're not too familiar with e-sports and competitive gaming, PBS aired a documentary not too long ago discussing how it all works.

[via The Next Web]