How Do You Explain Streamers?

Legit question though.

How does any given streamer (regardless of rank, public profile, LCS visibility or whatever) acquire a viewership base of millions? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Where do these regular viewers come from?

People who don't play League wouldn't be interested in spending large chunks of time watching somebody else play League (I would assume).

On the other hand, people who do have the free time and who might otherwise possibly spend the time watching...** wouldn't they rather play the game themselves?**

If you had 2+ hours of completely disposable free time... would you rather spend it WATCHING someone play League or play League yourself? I would guess 99% of the people would go for the second. If you think "the game sucks" then you wouldn't care to play but I doubt you'd have much interest in watching either.

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Now even if we assumed that there are many players who tune in to try and "learn specific champions/metas" just to observe what the pros do (educational viewers)... I still can't imagine these people tuning in large enough numbers and with enough time viewing to allow for a consistent viewership on any channel of millions.

These "serious" education-oriented gamers would still be spending WAY MORE TIME playing the game/experimenting then simply watching someone else do it right?

SO HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?

WHERE DO THESE VIEWERS COME FROM?

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TLDR... WHY would millions of people watch someone else play League (when they can play it themselves) to such a degree that million+ views channels can be sustained?