'League of Legends' is popular, but not profitable as an esport

As one of the most-watched esports in the world, League of Legends still isn't making a profit off its professional competitive scene.

Although developer Riot Games has been pouring money into the esports side of League for years, it still isn't profitable according to Riot's creators Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck, who confirmed the fact to Polygon in an in-depth interview.

"Yes, we’re still investing millions into esports without profit, but our goal with esports has always been to make a great player experience first," Beck told Polygon's Phil Kollar.

Unlike most other esports titles, League's professional competitive scene is run almost entirely in-house. Riot operates its own leagues all over the world, hosting regular seasons and tournaments for dozens of professional, semi-pro and even amateur teams.

These leagues began in 2012, three years after the game release and one year after the League of Legends Season One Championship was hosted at DreamHack summer 2011. Beck told Polygon they had 100,000 concurrent viewers for that tournament. The 2015 World Championships had an average concurrent viewership of 4.2 million.

Although Riot's strategies have worked for gathering eyeballs, gathering enough money to pull its esports division into the black continues to be an issue. Recently, Team SoloMid owner Andy "Reginald" Dinh wrote a public response to Merrill's comments about teams not investing enough into the game, noting that other games with third-party tournaments are a more lucrative option for TSM's pro teams.

"Most [League of Legends Championship Series] teams lose money because stipends are stagnant, sponsorships for LCS team operations are shrinking and the cost of player salaries, content production, support staff and housing costs are spiraling up," Dinh said in his statement.

He continues to list problems his team has faced with sponsors: Riot does not allow some sponsors to have visibility at its events and threatened TSM with fines for putting out an HTC commercial on its own YouTube page.

Other games and their respective companies do not impose these kinds of restrictions on teams and often license their games to third-party tournament organizers for a fee.

Of course this doesn't mean that League of Legends itself is a money hole; through in-game purchases, outside estimates put Riot Games' revenue at over $1 billion.