Home I eSports I eSports I League of Legends 2017 Review
In February of 2017, something happened that the League of Legends community expected. Lee » Faker » Sang-Hyeok began broadcasting his games on Twitch and broke records in the process. He managed to get more than 245,000 people to tune in at the same time to his channel. The spectators enjoyed the mastery of the best player in the history of Riot Games.
Practicing flashes, itemizations, or jungle routes has never been so easy. A step forward for many professionals but also for content creators who from a moment could predict end-of-game situations with a couple of clicks.
Demanding requirements made important teams like Immortals say goodbye to the LCS. But who covered their gaps? Some of the most influential sports brands such as Optic Gaming stepped up, along with three family franchises of NBA teams: Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Houston Rockets.
Professional players log thousands of hours necessary to perform at the highest level. In a sport such as League of Legends, a few people understand that for the stars of the game, this is their life.
We have seen world-class players like Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larsson and Faker fall into tears. This happened when they did not meet the challenges that they had proposed. It has come to question the emotions of both, opening a debate on whether «someone who earns so much money can be sad.»
Beyond this theme, everyone should agree that the photograph of Faker crying is unforgettable. This happened after losing the final of the World Championship by a hard 3-0 against Samsung Galaxy. Those snapshots will be forever recorded in the eyes of the fans of the League of Legends.
A total of 144 players participated in this year’s edition of the most important LoL competition worldwide, representing 28 different countries. The fans had a very important role in 2017, managing to raise $2,696,970 for the final prize which totaled $4,946,970.
The highest number of concurrent spectators in the 2017 Worlds was witnessed in the semi-final. It was the match between Royal Never Give Up and SK Telecom T1 with 80 million viewers. On the other hand, the final was watched by 56.7 million simultaneous viewers all over the world.
With all this data, Riot Games closes «the most significant year to date» and the company has taken the opportunity to thank all the players. They ensured that in 2018 the LoL community should «work to improve the structure of each of the regional leagues».