League of Legends dishing out over 5 mil in prize money this season

The second season of League of Legends has been kicked off for some time now, about half way done now.  Already, this early in the season, more than $1,000,000 has been handed out to some of the top teams around the world.  With the season ending October 13th 2012 in Los Angeles, the prize is sitting pretty at $3,000,000 – this is the largest payday in all of eSports history.  Altogether, season two will dish out over $5,000,000 to winners.

Since season 2 started in November of 2011, teams have been competing in the Challenger Circuit to play in the finals.  A total of 12 teams will be selected to compete in the World Championship at the University of Southern California.  This ‘arena’ housing the finals will consist of 250,000 square feet of League of Legends gameplay.

The breakdown of the twelve teams can be seen below:

 ·         Mainland China: July 26 – Shanghai, China at China Joy – 2 teams

·         Europe: August 16 – Cologne, Germany at Gamescom – 3 teams

·         North America: August 31 – Seattle, United States at PAX Prime – 3 teams

·         Korea: September 21 – Seoul, Korea at the OGN eSports Stadium – 2 teams

·         Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau: September 22 – Taipei, Taiwan at G1 – 1 team

·         Southeast Asia: September – Singapore at Garena Carnival – 1 team

Riot Games co-founders, Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, appear exited to see these high levels of competitions pan out.  With over 2 million live viewers to single circuit event, who wouldn’t be?  This audience is larger than a Major League Baseball game on ESPN – for perspective purposes. League of Legends is only growing and the success with this eSports is only ingraining its success more.