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2012 has felt like a breakout year for eSports, and MLG just released some huge numbers to prove it. Last weekend's MLG Spring Championship absolutely crushed the viewership totals of the MLG's entire 2011 lineup combined. When a single championship weekend eclipses a full year of competition, you know 2012 is likely a transformative year.
MLG did not release a detailed breakdown of its numbers from last weekend, so we can't compare StarCraft 2's viewership to League of Legends'. It's clear that MLG is moving LoL into parity with StarCraft 2 for the 2012 Pro Circuit season, including an Arena event in this next Summer season, and it would interesting to see how much of this past weekend's record-breaking audience belonged to League of Legends, to SC2, or to both.
On the other hand, while it's fun to parse numbers like that, they could encourage a League of Legends vs. StarCraft 2 debate that misses the essential point: eSports are exploding in popularity right now. While previous years have seen significant growth, the Anaheim event proves that eSports command a large and fast-growing audience. The year-end totals from MLG should be fascinating.
