Champions crowned at MLG Anaheim

Last weekend's Major League Gaming Spring Championships event in Anaheim, California broke MLG spectator records with over 21,000 competitors and fans attending the event. Hundreds of thousands more online watched the best StarCraft II, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and League of Legends players in the world battle it out for $105,000 in prizes.

"Based on feedback from our MLG community, I think the Spring Championship was one of the most successful events in the 10-year history of the company," MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni told GameSpot. "Not only did the event break previous spectator records with more than 21,000 attending over the three-day competition, we had a great turn out for all three of our featured games.

"Both competitors and fans proved they are dedicated to the growth of MLG and competitive gaming. The broadcast production was stellar," he added. "We delivered three days of live content to millions around the globe and our viewers were engaged and active on social media getting #MLG trending worldwide."

The success of this year's MLG Anaheim event follows a trend seen at last year's Anaheim event, where 4.7 million unique viewers tuned in to watch. In the early years of MLG, the west coast events were considered to be the weakest of the yearly lineup. In more recent times with the growth of competitive gaming and eSports in the West, California has become a hotbed for eSports with major developer support residing in the state.

"In the last few years, Anaheim has proven to be a great location for our events," DiGiovanni said. "I think we can attribute the success of our Anaheim events to a number of factors: the close proximity to our development partners--Activision, Riot, and Blizzard; the overall growth and support of the competitive gaming community; and how easy it is to travel to southern California."

During the event, MLG announced the next Pro Circuit Championship will take place in Columbus, Ohio, from November 22--24. Last year, MLG hosted 4 Pro Circuit events for each of the seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall) in the same locations, with the exception of Raleigh, North Carolina for this year. It is not yet known if MLG will host 4 Pro Circuit events again this year.

Choi "Polt" Seong Hoon, Complexity Gaming, and FXOpen eSports won the StarCraft II, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and League of Legends events respectively. GameSpot was on-hand at MLG Anaheim and conducted interviews with all of the winners, which can be found at GameSpot's eSports hub.

Watch all the games from MLG Anaheim on MLG's new TVhomepage.