Gfinity Esports 2015

If you ever doubted that video games could be a spectator sport, here's the stat to prove you wrong — gaming tournament organiser Gfinity says over 30 million people around the world have watched its 2015 eSports championships.

Gfinity is a company that puts on video game tournaments in a converted cinema screen in West London each week. The world's top video game teams — yes, that's a thing — battle each other on titles like "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare," "FIFA 15," "Counter Strike: Global Offensives," and "Starcraft."

The "eSports" games are streamed live online for free, but you can buy tickets to watch in person at Gfinity's eSports arena in Fulham, West London. Millions of online viewers are watching competitors play in the same way one would watch football or rugby on television. The main screen shows the video game, while the actual player is displayed in a small box in the corner of the screen. 

The 30 million viewers mark comes just half way through the season, which runs from March to September. 

Gfinity flies in teams from around the world to compete at its "eSports arena" and so far this year "crews" or "squads" who have competed include OpTic, Denial, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Fnatic, and Team EnVyUs — all well known in the eSports world. Each specialises in a particular video game and prizes for events reach up to $50,000 (£32,300). There are 25 weekly tournaments. 

eSports is worth $621 million globally, according to a recent industry report, with a worldwide audience of 134 million. Korea and China are the biggest markets for video game viewing, followed by North America.

Last year, Amazon paid $970 million for video game streaming site Twitch and even ESPN has started coverage of video games.

Gfinity said today the majority of its views are on Twitch.