In 2021 many eSports disciplines have renewed their viewership records. This is largely due to the easing of the coronavirus. Countries are slowly but slowly opening up to foreigners, allowing large-scale events to take place. It is to be hoped that the trend will continue in 2022.
League of Legends
LoL is a discipline that is finding fans and fans of cybersports betting all over the world. Gamers have spent over 174.8 million hours watching it. this is not only the highest total for the year but also the highest ever. In addition to the traditionally great hype surrounding the event, the statistics were also influenced by the return of T1 with Faker, who missed out on the 2020 World Cup.
Mexico, Canada, and the USA will host the League of Legends World Cup in 2022. The last time the World Cup was held in the US was in 2016, and since then, cybersport and LoL betting have come a long way.
"We are excited to return to North America to host a full-scale competition and, COVID permitting, to bring fans to the stands in four cities and three countries," said Naz Aletaha, head of international cybersports at League of Legends.
The preliminary stage of the championship will be held in Mexico City, with the group stage and quarter-finals in New York City and the semi-finals in Toronto. The finals will take place at the Chase Center Arena in San Francisco.
Dota 2
In second place was Worlds main rival The International 10 for Dota 2. Dota 2 was the logical continuation of the DotA mod for Warcraft 3. This mod has become so popular among players that they began to hold tournaments within it, and then released a separate game - Dota 2. The game appeared in open beta testing immediately after a major tournament The International with a prize of 1 000 000 dollars.
As we can see, the main factor behind the growth of the number of professional cyber athletes in Dota 2, apart from the well-organized league structure, is the ever-increasing prize pool. The North Americans and Chinese lead the world in prize money.
Fans of the discipline have been eagerly awaiting the TI because last year it did not take place at all, which accounted for the high numbers. In total, the championship racked up 107.2 million viewing hours. This is a new discipline record; the last one belonged to TI9 and was improved by 21%.
CS: GO
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is literally the most popular shooter game in the world. Vulkan CS GO matches began to gain popularity after Valve organized the first tournament with a prize pool of 250,000 USD. Today, the main events allow participants to win even more than $1,000,000.
The game was released in 2012 as a logical continuation of version 1.6. The new version of the shooter has received modern graphics, refined game balance, interesting maps, and many other components.
