The eSports management platform Battlefy has collected data on eSports tournaments in North America for the last few years, and the results show the tremendous growth of eSports in the last three years. (I'm sure sliverstorm will love the graphs!) In fact, EPSN aired the fourth annual tournament for DotA 2 International to great enough success that it wants to expand its programming to include more of Major League Gaming's schedule.
The number of tournaments in North America has grown from 8,809 in 2011 to an estimated number of 47,500 this year, a 539% increase in just over the course of three years. Only about 5.65% of all the tournaments counted had more than 32 participants, and only .44% of them had more than 128 participants.
Not surpisingly, League of Legends tops the list of eSports Tournaments in 2013 with 7,565, with DotA 2 sitting in second place with 5,012 and FIFA in third place with 4,919. Rounding out the top 10 are Pokemon (50,403), Starcraft 2 (3,104), Call of Duty (2,263), Counter Strike (1,411), Street Fighter (656), Battlefie;d (226), and World of Tanks (195).
The vast majority of Battlefy competitors in 2014 hail from California (25.7%). It takes the next four states on the list, Washington (8.8%), New York (7.4%), Texas (5.7%) and Florida (4.2), just to match that number.
