Every year there's a great culmination - the annual professional League of Legends world championship tournament called "League of Legends World Championship". It is hosted by Riot Games and is very popular. Each team compete for the champion title, a 1,000,000 USD champion prize, and the 70 pounds (32 kg) Summoner's Cup. In 2016, 43 million people were watching the finals. The peak concurrent viewership was 14.7 million viewers, which broke 2015's finals' viewer records. The amount of unique viewers that tuned in every day via television channels and online (the total cumulative daily unique impressions) hit 396 million.
LA 2024, which is in control of the Los Angeles bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics was inspired by the success of 2016 League of Legends World Championship. In addition, it's considering to arrange and include eSports in the Olympics games if they manage to win the bid. The chairman of LA 2024, Casey Wasserman, suggested utilizing technology used in specific segments of League of Legends Worlds such as improved virtual reality and reality in order to create the Olympics more accessible to a younger demographic.
League of Legends World Championships have achieved astounding popularity and success, becoming a part of the world's most prestigious and watched tournaments (beating even Sports tournaments), and also - becoming the worlds' most watched video game.
The 2016 League of Legends World Championship Finals drew attention of bigger audience than 2016 NBA Finals. eSports scenes became outstanding and widely seen as a potential Olympics event due to the success of League of Legends. It will also be included as a medal event in 2022 Asian Games. Currently, with three world championship wins (2013, 2015, 2016), South Korea's SK Telecom T1 holds the highest record of wins.
Riot Games, which owns League of Legends, authorized the winner's trophy known as the Summoner's Cup. Riot stated that the cup should weigh 70 pounds, though the real weight of the finished cup was decreased so it would be possible to lift in victory. MacTavish created the winners' trophy for the 2014 games, having already created the Season Two World Championship Cup in 2012.
