Despite sentiments from many that League of Legends is losing players or dying, the game is still performing quite while on the esport front. Profits are up, more viewers tuned in than ever to Worlds, and Riot’s Santa Monica studio has sold out every single game of the Spring split, usually weeks in advance of each match.

Part of the reason for the games selling out comes on the back of the reduced number of games played during each split. Last year, the NA LCS played Best of Five matches every weekend, which resulted in far more game time, far more production cost, and far more manpower. In September 2017, they announced plans to return to a Best of One, drastically reducing the cost of producing the games. As a result, Riot would no longer be dual-casting two games at the same time as they had done in the past. This would certainly make sense why there would be higher demand for the games since two were now condensed into one. However, tickets still sold extraordinarily fast, especially for the Spring Split finals.

After sources leaked that the Finals would be held in Miami, Riot confirmed the news on February 5th. Just two weeks after the announcement, tickets were sold out to the event. This was on February 22nd, just after the fifth week of the regular season. At that point, no one’s position in the playoffs was guaranteed, and four more weeks of the season meant virtually anyone could be competing. Despite that, fans immediately bought out the 2400+ seats for the venue in Miami. And while some viewing stats appeared lower, mostly due to the reduced hours streamed, overall, viewership was up from last year.

While peaks of the 2017 Spring Split were slightly higher than 2018, average viewership grew by 21%. That means that nearly 40,000 more people tuned in to the 2018 Spring Finals than did in 2017. By nearly any metric, Riot and League of Legends are doing very well.

A source at Riot said that the company has been happy with the Spring split thus far, and while Best of Ones means fewer games, it also makes it far easier for fans to keep up with scores. We’ll have to see how MSI looks compared to last year, but given that the international audience for League of Legends has swelled considerably, things are looking good. We’ll just have to wait and see if they sell out the 6000+ seats at Zenith in Paris, and if so, how quickly.