Overwatch Championship Collection’ first Main has pulled in larger viewership than 2023’s OWL Midseason event in a promising begin to the rebooted esport league.
With the autumn of the Overwatch League got here OWCS, a reboot to the sport’s esports scene that traded the previous closed league system for an open circuit to usher in a brand new unsure period.
Finally, OWCS obtained to host its first-ever worldwide LAN, the Dallas Main. Regardless of large tech points leading to a four-hour delay, it was an total success in its first exhibiting. The shock return of SF Shock to the scene was revealed stay on stage whereas Loopy Raccoon and Korea proved to be nonetheless dominant.
In addition to this, the viewership numbers for OWCS present main promise for the long run, pulling in additional viewers than OWL’s final midseason event.
According to Esports Charts, at its peak, the OWCS Dallas Main pulled in 125,146 viewers in the course of the Toronto Defiant vs Loopy Raccoon match. That is in distinction to 2023’s OWL Midseason Insanity peak of 84,923 viewers in its Grand Finals.
Moreover, it virtually doubled Midseason Insanity’ hours watched to 2.66 million from OWL’s 1.35 million hours, with a drastic improve of 97,363 common viewers.
Though it doesn’t beat Overwatch’s highest-viewed events up to now — which is held by the inaugural season of OWL and Overwatch World Cup — OWCS is properly on monitor to beat 2023’s OWL Playoffs.
OWL’s 2023 playoffs noticed a peak of 157,689 viewers, which doesn’t make OWCS too far off from Overwatch League’s swan track.
As Esport Charts notes, Japanese viewership was one of many greatest, simply behind the English broadcast. Numbers from the area have been steadily rising because of OWCS’ open circuit format, which supplies an opportunity for Japanese groups to make it to the large levels.
The numbers might not be groundbreaking for the rebooted scene, nevertheless, as a league ranging from the bottom up, it’s already exhibiting some promise.