(VIDEO) 40,000 PEOPLE PACK SOUTH KOREA'S WORLD CUP STADIUM TO WATCH $1 MILLION DOLLAR VIDEO GAME CHALLENGE

SOUTH KOREA'S WORLD CUP STADIUM

Drums thundered, pyrotechnics exploded and fans banged red-and-white thundersticks at South Korea’s World Cup Stadium on Saturday for a world championship title worth a cool $1 million.

But the fans weren’t cheering for their favorite athletes. Instead they packed the stadium to watch ten people play a computer game.

The game in question was the free-to-play League of Legends, which pits two teams of five players against each other in a no-holds-barred battle to destroy the enemy’s home base.



Saturday’s big game was the League of Legends World Championship match which was the culmination of a month-long tournament comprised of the 14 best teams from around the world.



Unfortunately for the 40,000 fans on hand, the match was a decidedly one-sided match with Korea’s Samsung White wiping the floor with China’s Starhorn Royal Club.

Besides winning the title of world’s best, the Korean’s also walked away with $1 million, according to Forbes.

Released in 2009, League of Legends has grown to become one of the most popular video games in the world with 27 million people playing the game every day, according to Forbes.

Besides its legions of everyday fans, League of Legends has also spawned a class of professional gamers who can earn nearly $1 million per year, according to video game site Gamespot.com.

While most pros are from Asia, the home of esports, the professional gaming community in the US is growing with Robert Morris University even offering athletic scholarships to the country’s best young gamers.