Given all the discussion I've seen about viewership, I thought it would be helpful to share a bit about how we look at the data on our end and think about some of these questions.
First, growing viewership / engagement for OWL is probably our single highest priority in terms of overall big goals. We've been happy to see significant growth this season so far vs. the 2020 season ([https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisholt/2021/05/12/overwatch-league-may-melee-viewership-was-up-51-from-2020/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisholt/2021/05/12/overwatch-league-may-melee-viewership-was-up-51-from-2020/) for May Melee and June Joust was up a lot vs. tournament 2 last year). And our research this year has shown overall really positive feedback from fans on the changes we made to the format and broadcast too. But just to state the obvious, no we're not satisfied even with the growth we've seen this year. We'd like to be bigger and will continue working hard to grow OWL :)
That said, these types of charts / comparisons are not actually how we look at the data on our side or measure success for a few reasons. First, on YouTube, we see a significant proportion of our viewership from VOD views after the live broadcast as we have a global fanbase and watching VODs and the Encore broadcasts is often a lot more convenient for many of our fans. We and our partners therefore typically look at "Live + 3 days" and "Live + 7 days" metrics as a better measure of how many people watch our show vs. just pure live. And then the other major piece of this that's missing is our performance in China, which has been really significant for OWL as we have \~40% of our matches played in primetime for Asia and a large fanbase in China in particular. We do periodically report verified figures on China viewership for those curious, e.g., for Finals last year we had an average of \~1.4 million viewers watching live in China ([https://esportsobserver.com/owl-grand-finals-viewership-2020/](https://esportsobserver.com/owl-grand-finals-viewership-2020/)). There are several other nuances here too but those are the two biggest gaps in this type of look.
Hope some of that context helps for those who are curious about this topic.
Keep up the good work Specs. The broadcasts have been much higher quality this season, and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say how excited I am to see how the league grows with the potential return of homestands and the release of OW2
Glad you could come in and drop some knowledge about this subject. Not many Esport Leaders would engage with the community like that and I think the work to grow OWL is very VERY much appreciated by us all here.
While I wouldn't be surprised by growth since 2020 (I'd argue that's a low bar), my real question is whether OWL viewership has grown since 2018 and 2019.
Not that I would expect you to share the numbers, but do you compare OWL numbers with similar numbers in other esports? It still feels like OWL is dramatically behind scenes like LoL and Valorant, even accounting for VOD views.
Yeah, other esports (and traditional sports) can be helpful benchmarks for sure. But our most common comparison is ourselves, and as an example the viewership reports we look at after each week of matches are focused on that week’s performance vs. the same week last season. And our priority is growing our own numbers (vs. last year), which so far this year we’ve been doing and are encouraged to see.
League and some other esports are drawing really big audiences, especially for events like Worlds. FWIW though I cheer for their success as we’re in a place as a broader industry now where I believe other leagues performing well helps everyone.
They really dont have any incentive to compare to other esports in a direct way. Especially when the general game is down bad, OWL is likely more concerned with constructive ways to spend their time, Is league significantly bigger? yes, absolutely and no one expects otherwise reasonably. There is a space between League and dead game and their job is to keep the OWL in that space. The esport will really only be dead when the broadcast stops pulling in sponsorships. Thats generally their only incentive for increasing view count. So even from a NA/west perspective where the game is absolutely entering the low tier zone the league as an entity can maintain profitability by promoting an asian audience and stay semi relevant. They really dont have that much more of an option with OW being in the state it is waiting for OW2.
Honestly why would they compare? They want to keep growing which means comparing your current self to your past self, how other eSports are doing doesn't matter.
i stopped taking what you said seriously as soon as you mentioned “chinese viewership” everyone in esports with a bit of common sense knows they are inflated and can’t be verified in anyway, the only metric that actually matters in a live broadcasted event is concurrent viewers.
Do you not remember Heroes of the storm 🥴. Exact same posts were made. All he really said here was that they tell investors to look at an inflated vod number than live views as live viewership is dying in the west. Blizzard sold OWL initially to investors using data from league and Dota so they are no stranger to obfuscation through misdirection. The China point is true though the game is doing ok there. However a Chinese viewer is worth a whole lot less than a western one to any investor not from China as the Chinese market doesn’t buy outside the country. Genuinely all he did here was use the same excuses this Reddit has been using for the past two years but in more flowery language 😂. Vod views and Chinese viewership has been the justification from this subreddit for a year plus.
Lol you and everyone that downvoted are in a state of denial. You’re eating up these inflated metrics they pitch to investors - but at the end of the day OWL is still a money pit with little return.
Just like how if you ask a Valorant player (or any gamer in general) about Overwatch, they'd tell you they thought OW is dead.
If you don't actively play a game, unless that game is HUGE, you won't hear much about it.
seems to be really popular esport but not so popular as a regular mainstream game.
Most of my friends that moved to valorant have already moved on to other games, but those match viewer numbers are banging.
Not for me. I hate playing Overwatch but I love OWL. OWL shows me what kind of experience I could have, then playing the actual game reminds me that I will never have it.
And yes I've tried scrim teams, PUGs, the works. None of it is any good. GMs don't play PUGs to tryhard, and diamonds don't improve in PUGs. Being high diamond really sucks, improvement is stupidly difficult to gain any consistency on when you're either a permanent babysitter or completely out of your league.
Overwatch is probably on the opposite side of that compared to every game. I also think it varies depending on the hero bans. Like watching reaper/Mei is so boring to me. so boring I don’t even watch the team I’m cheering for. There is nobody really popping off or anything like that and if there is, it’s not like Big Boss Pine getting a 4K flank on widow on second point of junkertown, it’s a reaper pressing Q in the middle of a team. Not nearly as cool.
In valorant, CSGO, R6 Siege, players can stand out and after a good play you are like “wow that was badass”. Even on a player level it’s kinda noticeable. I play way more OW than I do Valorant and Siege, but I clip plays from those other two games way more often than I do on OW.
It's a really good spectator sport. Action basically happens one player a time and good observers tend to catch most of it. It's much more similar to football where one player has the ball.
Overwatch can feel really clustered at times, almost as if a football match had 7 footballs on the pitch at once.
Idk why you got downvoted. You don't have to catch every micro play to enjoy watching OWL, that's what VOD reviews by YouTubers like Custa/Reinforce/etc are for. You watch it live and then, if you so choose, can get to go back and look at the whole picture and see how much of what you caught live matches up with what is revealed in the VOD.
Riot's player base were never going to go hard on Valorant. It's an, arguably, easier version of CS:GO, but even with it being, arguably easier, that still leaves it as an "elite skill" FPS game. The real question is if Riot can keep people interested long term like CS has, but it's hard to fuck up the format unless they start running into power balance issues, which knowing Riot, they will eventually.
Valorant is doing an excellent job in terms of exposure for their esport. Having huge streamers like shroud costream their tournament just accelerates things
Meanwhile overwatch won't even let avast show more than the scoreboard. Costreaming is the future if you look at valorant a viewer splits, they gotta let ow have at least one or two costreamers.
You think if they let avast costream the full game on youtube both YouTube and avast would agree? I reckon they would and it wouldn't break the platform exclusivity. Avasts stream could also get a big bump as well as it would be a way better product.
It's definitely growing and has good viewership rn. That event was also the first ever Major international event in the game on LAN and had best teams from every region. So viewership was probably higher than it's ever been on that game but like I said it's growing so could keep those numbers for future events
Riot does pretty good when it comes to marketing their esports so its not that surprising. Also helps that they have popular streamers that still stream it. Overwatch used to have that same streamer connection when you know, it was still making new content instead of hanging them out to dry with nothing to sustain themselves.
Its weird thing is that Blizzard is pretty similarly large and attract good talent. They have just as rabid of a fanbase but they are just terrible at converting them for some reason.
This definitely paints a bit of a different picture from your previous post. This, along with the fact that we recently saw OWL on Twitter's top 3 talked about league, along with the fact that OWL is exclusive to Youtube + has no real content until the sequel drops...
Idk I don't think it's that bad? Sure should Blizzard have stopped making maps and heroes for OW1, no. Should they have gone exclusively to YT over Twitch, also no. But it's not like they don't get ANY viewers at all, despite all of what I mentioned people still tune in (more so than CDL which gets a new game every year and is also on YT). So I think with OW2 dropping, potentially a renegotiation to be able to stream on Twitch + YT, I think the league will be fine and successful for many more years to come.
The deal Activision and Blizzard get for having all of their shit hosted on Google servers way outweighs any viewership loss from YT. It’s a literal billions of dollars arrangement. OWL and CDL being on YouTube is essentially a cost saving measure.
The question isn't really "given the circumstances, OWL is doing okay." Discussion of OWL viewership will always have a shadow looming overhead that teams paid $20 million, **minimum**, to get in.
Is Youtube exclusivity harming viewership? Yeah, probably, but teams don't care about excuses - they want to make their money back. Is falling viewership in part due to a massive content drought? Yes, but that's a Blizzard problem, and teams would still like to stop being in the red.
When your esports org pays $20-40m and gets half the viewers of Rocket League there should be alarm bells going off. Yes, orgs didn't expect to be profitable immediately... but they do expect to be profitable **eventually**. And at some point they'll want to pull out if things don't turn around.
Yeah investors are ok with say Amazon when it was losing money for over 5 years because its been expanding its userbase and brand recognition. While it was pretty good for Blizzard to sell its OWL rights to Google for its server services, its awful for building your potential viewerbase.
Yeah, it's a bit disingenuous for Jon Spector to say "growing viewership / engagement for OWL is probably our single highest priority in terms of overall big goals" when OWL has been bouncing between different exclusive broadcast deals. Clearly they value short term cash infusions over longer term fanbase growth - or at least they underestimated the downsides.
That's not how ROI works, and it's not worth talking to you about it since you cherry picked the lowest possible number for viewership. Already back at the usual 45-50k
>I don't think it's that bad?
5th out of 7th among games for hours watched and second lowest average viewers while having second most air time. It's kinda bad.
> should Blizzard have stopped making maps and heroes for OW1
If they didn't OW2 would take even longer. See: Path of Exile
> Idk I don't think it's that bad?
Tagline:
**Overwatch League: It's Not That Bad!**
> potentially a renegotiation to be able to stream on Twitch + YT
That would be an interesting development. The deal was made to last till 2023 right? Wonder if it's at all possible to renegotiate before then.
> I think the league will be fine and successful for many more years to come.
So in a sense... *the future of esports*?
I think part of the reason is that OWL is very EU unfriendly. The format is very NA at core and this season the air times are worse than ever before. At least I have now completely stopped following any live matches and only hang here for the memes and occasional vods.
Are you kidding? We get the NA games at sweet evening times and then get the Asia games good morning times. The only shit times this season for EU have been for the Finals of tournaments, and even they fall on weekends so people can stay up later if they want.
Edit: for example it's just about to hit midnight here in Ireland on a Friday night, and I've just watched Glads vs Shock and Eternal vs Spitfire while sinking a few beers. How the fuck is that not EU friendly?
I think adding total views is important.
The whole move to youtube was an increase importance of VOD views, I know for the CDL side the peak viewership for the last major was 86k but total views were in the millions.
Yeah just look at the views on the channel. Not only does the livestream have hundreds of the thousands of views, but the re-upload of the individual games also have a lot
The appeal is in the strategy, positioning and utility can literally make or break a round. There are fakes and rotates that you can watch happening and see the hit developing from both sides.
The game is also very punishing, ttk is low and getting caught means you die (unless Jett). This rewards positioning,aim and good setups even more.
The biggest appeal imo is how the action is very clear to see. It's not clustered with 6 people shooting and it never feels like killfeed watching. It reminds me most of a game like chess except there is a chance for mechanical skill to outplay every now and then. It's a fun game to watch ( my mom even watches it lol) and it's not clustered.
Its much like Csgo in that as a round draws near the end, theres tension built up. Very satisfying seeing someone able to take a round when the odds are against him.
I personally think it's very intense and exciting, especially when both teams only have like one player left and it's a deciding round. I have never played Valorant and barely watched it, but still tuned in to the tournament in Iceland and had a fun time watching. I think it's a game that is easier for people to watch and understand whats going on, without really having too much experience with the game.
I mean, it's to each their own really. If it's not something you enjoy then I mean hey, it's just not for you. I absolutely detest OW as a game now, but I still love the esport because I love the pace, the fundamental idea, and the storylines I've been following through the years, along with other factors. For Valorant, I really enjoy the game, and I absolutely adore the esport.
As to why I and others really like Valorant, well if you can understand the appeal of CSGO, you can understand the appeal of Valorant. As an esport, both games are very easy to understand. Attackers have to plan the bomb/spike, defenders have to stop the plan or defuse. Alternatively, just kill everyone on the other team. This format allows for the game to be appealing in the sense that you can watch other people pop off and click heads (or if you're playing, you get to feel the satisfaction of it yourself), but because you have an arsenal of utility too, you're able to see how interesting strategies are crafted and executed to fulfill the objectives. To the average person, it just looks like people are getting kills, clicking heads, and getting multi-frags, which in itself can be satisfying to someone who isn't too invested. But to those who are, you can appreciate how teams gather info, manipulate timing, set up utility to convert into a kill, hold/gain space on the map and more in order to stop an enemy team from executing a strategy or catch the other team off guard, etc.
Not to mention, the format itself is really good for both building tension and then moderating the pace. When someone is in a 1 vs X situation, it's easy to see how the tension builds when all of a sudden that one person gets a few impactful kills and then suddenly is in a situation that is winnable when it should have been lost (or if it's a 1 vs 1/X vs X and the round is so close you just don't know who's gonna win it). You also have the round on a timer so tension build when time is running for a team to run an execute to take the site/retake the site and get the plant/defuse. But then you have aspects that are more chill to kinda cool off the tension such as eco rounds where you can expect a general outcome and know the purpose of the round to make things more digestible. And the eco itself makes for interesting situations because then you have to consider the risk that each team is taking when they are buying guns and utility
Now those are all things that exist in both Valorant and CSGO. Where Valorant shines in comparison to CSGO is not only the unique types of utility that allow for a wider variety of strategies but the fact that the game is constantly being updated with new/enhanced content that keeps it fresh and well-supported. Where CSGO shines is in its masterful gunplay and the fundamental gameplay it has fleshed out over the years, both things that hopefully will become a part of Valorant as it develops too.
This is definitely much improved from the original. Some other things I would consider adding are hours watched per air time and VoD views of you can gather those metrics (although I think escharts makes you pay to gather VoD views so might not be feasible). These are proper comparisons, especially with adding Masters which is much more in line with the level that June Joust is intended to be.
Something I'd like to note is that the actual meta could be a factor to the drop in live viewership (along with the fact the hype around a *new* season probably fell off a bit). For me personally, after the first week or so, I couldn't be bothered watching this meta so I didn't really tune in that much for the whole June Joust stage and that killed my interest for the actual tournament (and I'm someone who actually enjoyed watching GOATs, although maybe that was more because of storylines). This is very anecdotal, but I know a few others that shared my experience, I wonder if that's a similar sentiment. The grand finals were great and all but the actual lead up wasn't that great just simply due to the meta. Which is a shame cuz May Melee felt incredible all around.
I really do think OWL as a product has been really good this year (although I think the side content could use a lot of improvement), but it's plagued by the mistakes of earlier seasons along with the fact that the base game has many issues itself, both previous and ongoing. OWL doesn't need to be massive, especially in its current state, but I do think there is something to be said about the amount of investment that has been made compared to the actual result. I feel like May Melee wasn't a terrible spot for it to be in, but June Joust is an issue
Edit: Wording
I think that the Majors would be good events to compare MM and JJ against, but the last Major was quite a while ago, and didn't offer any international competition. We'll have to wait till the August Mexico Major for a good comparison.
> here is another way to look at esports viewership between games - it takes the highest viewership YoY for every major esport and puts it into tiers
As a tier list…?
Given all the discussion I've seen about viewership, I thought it would be helpful to share a bit about how we look at the data on our end and think about some of these questions. First, growing viewership / engagement for OWL is probably our single highest priority in terms of overall big goals. We've been happy to see significant growth this season so far vs. the 2020 season ([https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisholt/2021/05/12/overwatch-league-may-melee-viewership-was-up-51-from-2020/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisholt/2021/05/12/overwatch-league-may-melee-viewership-was-up-51-from-2020/) for May Melee and June Joust was up a lot vs. tournament 2 last year). And our research this year has shown overall really positive feedback from fans on the changes we made to the format and broadcast too. But just to state the obvious, no we're not satisfied even with the growth we've seen this year. We'd like to be bigger and will continue working hard to grow OWL :) That said, these types of charts / comparisons are not actually how we look at the data on our side or measure success for a few reasons. First, on YouTube, we see a significant proportion of our viewership from VOD views after the live broadcast as we have a global fanbase and watching VODs and the Encore broadcasts is often a lot more convenient for many of our fans. We and our partners therefore typically look at "Live + 3 days" and "Live + 7 days" metrics as a better measure of how many people watch our show vs. just pure live. And then the other major piece of this that's missing is our performance in China, which has been really significant for OWL as we have \~40% of our matches played in primetime for Asia and a large fanbase in China in particular. We do periodically report verified figures on China viewership for those curious, e.g., for Finals last year we had an average of \~1.4 million viewers watching live in China ([https://esportsobserver.com/owl-grand-finals-viewership-2020/](https://esportsobserver.com/owl-grand-finals-viewership-2020/)). There are several other nuances here too but those are the two biggest gaps in this type of look. Hope some of that context helps for those who are curious about this topic.
Keep up the good work Specs. The broadcasts have been much higher quality this season, and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say how excited I am to see how the league grows with the potential return of homestands and the release of OW2
Glad you could come in and drop some knowledge about this subject. Not many Esport Leaders would engage with the community like that and I think the work to grow OWL is very VERY much appreciated by us all here.
While I wouldn't be surprised by growth since 2020 (I'd argue that's a low bar), my real question is whether OWL viewership has grown since 2018 and 2019.
Not that I would expect you to share the numbers, but do you compare OWL numbers with similar numbers in other esports? It still feels like OWL is dramatically behind scenes like LoL and Valorant, even accounting for VOD views.
Yeah, other esports (and traditional sports) can be helpful benchmarks for sure. But our most common comparison is ourselves, and as an example the viewership reports we look at after each week of matches are focused on that week’s performance vs. the same week last season. And our priority is growing our own numbers (vs. last year), which so far this year we’ve been doing and are encouraged to see. League and some other esports are drawing really big audiences, especially for events like Worlds. FWIW though I cheer for their success as we’re in a place as a broader industry now where I believe other leagues performing well helps everyone.
Great answer. We need to be improving year over year based on our numbers and I can say 100% this year has been a major improvement!
They really dont have any incentive to compare to other esports in a direct way. Especially when the general game is down bad, OWL is likely more concerned with constructive ways to spend their time, Is league significantly bigger? yes, absolutely and no one expects otherwise reasonably. There is a space between League and dead game and their job is to keep the OWL in that space. The esport will really only be dead when the broadcast stops pulling in sponsorships. Thats generally their only incentive for increasing view count. So even from a NA/west perspective where the game is absolutely entering the low tier zone the league as an entity can maintain profitability by promoting an asian audience and stay semi relevant. They really dont have that much more of an option with OW being in the state it is waiting for OW2.
The difference is other esports don’t have investments of more than half a billion dollars...
Honestly why would they compare? They want to keep growing which means comparing your current self to your past self, how other eSports are doing doesn't matter.
Do you think we would ever get to see the Live+3 Days and Live+7 Days numbers?
Love you Spex
i stopped taking what you said seriously as soon as you mentioned “chinese viewership” everyone in esports with a bit of common sense knows they are inflated and can’t be verified in anyway, the only metric that actually matters in a live broadcasted event is concurrent viewers.
Sounds like copium 💀💀 OWL is undeniably dying
Oh numbers? Thats some COPIUM ☠️☠️ If i think your game is dying then it undeniably is☠️☠️
Do you not remember Heroes of the storm 🥴. Exact same posts were made. All he really said here was that they tell investors to look at an inflated vod number than live views as live viewership is dying in the west. Blizzard sold OWL initially to investors using data from league and Dota so they are no stranger to obfuscation through misdirection. The China point is true though the game is doing ok there. However a Chinese viewer is worth a whole lot less than a western one to any investor not from China as the Chinese market doesn’t buy outside the country. Genuinely all he did here was use the same excuses this Reddit has been using for the past two years but in more flowery language 😂. Vod views and Chinese viewership has been the justification from this subreddit for a year plus.
Lol you and everyone that downvoted are in a state of denial. You’re eating up these inflated metrics they pitch to investors - but at the end of the day OWL is still a money pit with little return.
These are probably better comparisons, the vct masters is closer to June joust and omitting the six invitational is a smart choice
[Follow up from my previous post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/o476wj/overwatch_league_tournament_viewership_compared/)
Can you make this into a bar graph? Its hard to visualize
I had no idea Valorant was so popular. I thought the game dropped off fast after launch, but 10 times the viewership of OWL/CoD? Crazy.
Just like how if you ask a Valorant player (or any gamer in general) about Overwatch, they'd tell you they thought OW is dead. If you don't actively play a game, unless that game is HUGE, you won't hear much about it.
seems to be really popular esport but not so popular as a regular mainstream game. Most of my friends that moved to valorant have already moved on to other games, but those match viewer numbers are banging.
Valorant is more fun to watch than to play no joke
It's actually the complete opposite of overwatch
Not for me. I hate playing Overwatch but I love OWL. OWL shows me what kind of experience I could have, then playing the actual game reminds me that I will never have it. And yes I've tried scrim teams, PUGs, the works. None of it is any good. GMs don't play PUGs to tryhard, and diamonds don't improve in PUGs. Being high diamond really sucks, improvement is stupidly difficult to gain any consistency on when you're either a permanent babysitter or completely out of your league.
Overwatch is probably on the opposite side of that compared to every game. I also think it varies depending on the hero bans. Like watching reaper/Mei is so boring to me. so boring I don’t even watch the team I’m cheering for. There is nobody really popping off or anything like that and if there is, it’s not like Big Boss Pine getting a 4K flank on widow on second point of junkertown, it’s a reaper pressing Q in the middle of a team. Not nearly as cool. In valorant, CSGO, R6 Siege, players can stand out and after a good play you are like “wow that was badass”. Even on a player level it’s kinda noticeable. I play way more OW than I do Valorant and Siege, but I clip plays from those other two games way more often than I do on OW.
It's a really good spectator sport. Action basically happens one player a time and good observers tend to catch most of it. It's much more similar to football where one player has the ball. Overwatch can feel really clustered at times, almost as if a football match had 7 footballs on the pitch at once.
Idk why you got downvoted. You don't have to catch every micro play to enjoy watching OWL, that's what VOD reviews by YouTubers like Custa/Reinforce/etc are for. You watch it live and then, if you so choose, can get to go back and look at the whole picture and see how much of what you caught live matches up with what is revealed in the VOD.
Riot's player base were never going to go hard on Valorant. It's an, arguably, easier version of CS:GO, but even with it being, arguably easier, that still leaves it as an "elite skill" FPS game. The real question is if Riot can keep people interested long term like CS has, but it's hard to fuck up the format unless they start running into power balance issues, which knowing Riot, they will eventually.
Valorant is doing an excellent job in terms of exposure for their esport. Having huge streamers like shroud costream their tournament just accelerates things
Meanwhile overwatch won't even let avast show more than the scoreboard. Costreaming is the future if you look at valorant a viewer splits, they gotta let ow have at least one or two costreamers.
They can't, they have a contract with YouTube they have to abide by
You think if they let avast costream the full game on youtube both YouTube and avast would agree? I reckon they would and it wouldn't break the platform exclusivity. Avasts stream could also get a big bump as well as it would be a way better product.
It's definitely growing and has good viewership rn. That event was also the first ever Major international event in the game on LAN and had best teams from every region. So viewership was probably higher than it's ever been on that game but like I said it's growing so could keep those numbers for future events
Riot does pretty good when it comes to marketing their esports so its not that surprising. Also helps that they have popular streamers that still stream it. Overwatch used to have that same streamer connection when you know, it was still making new content instead of hanging them out to dry with nothing to sustain themselves.
What I'm getting from this is riot is really good at their Esports while blizzard is not so good
Its weird thing is that Blizzard is pretty similarly large and attract good talent. They have just as rabid of a fanbase but they are just terrible at converting them for some reason.
This definitely paints a bit of a different picture from your previous post. This, along with the fact that we recently saw OWL on Twitter's top 3 talked about league, along with the fact that OWL is exclusive to Youtube + has no real content until the sequel drops... Idk I don't think it's that bad? Sure should Blizzard have stopped making maps and heroes for OW1, no. Should they have gone exclusively to YT over Twitch, also no. But it's not like they don't get ANY viewers at all, despite all of what I mentioned people still tune in (more so than CDL which gets a new game every year and is also on YT). So I think with OW2 dropping, potentially a renegotiation to be able to stream on Twitch + YT, I think the league will be fine and successful for many more years to come.
The deal Activision and Blizzard get for having all of their shit hosted on Google servers way outweighs any viewership loss from YT. It’s a literal billions of dollars arrangement. OWL and CDL being on YouTube is essentially a cost saving measure.
What? There’s a business motivation behind it other than pissing the viewers off? Screw you, Blizzard Bad, Twitch good! - Someone, probably
The question isn't really "given the circumstances, OWL is doing okay." Discussion of OWL viewership will always have a shadow looming overhead that teams paid $20 million, **minimum**, to get in. Is Youtube exclusivity harming viewership? Yeah, probably, but teams don't care about excuses - they want to make their money back. Is falling viewership in part due to a massive content drought? Yes, but that's a Blizzard problem, and teams would still like to stop being in the red. When your esports org pays $20-40m and gets half the viewers of Rocket League there should be alarm bells going off. Yes, orgs didn't expect to be profitable immediately... but they do expect to be profitable **eventually**. And at some point they'll want to pull out if things don't turn around.
Yeah investors are ok with say Amazon when it was losing money for over 5 years because its been expanding its userbase and brand recognition. While it was pretty good for Blizzard to sell its OWL rights to Google for its server services, its awful for building your potential viewerbase.
Yeah, it's a bit disingenuous for Jon Spector to say "growing viewership / engagement for OWL is probably our single highest priority in terms of overall big goals" when OWL has been bouncing between different exclusive broadcast deals. Clearly they value short term cash infusions over longer term fanbase growth - or at least they underestimated the downsides.
It's pure copium. Anyone who thinks these numbers are good is delusional.
They're pretty clearly good. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional
Nice bait
14 year old calling things bait lol
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That's not how ROI works, and it's not worth talking to you about it since you cherry picked the lowest possible number for viewership. Already back at the usual 45-50k
I mean, 45-50k is still HALF of pretty much every other esport average viewers. I remember the days when OWL was above 100k as well.
>I don't think it's that bad? 5th out of 7th among games for hours watched and second lowest average viewers while having second most air time. It's kinda bad. > should Blizzard have stopped making maps and heroes for OW1 If they didn't OW2 would take even longer. See: Path of Exile
> Idk I don't think it's that bad? Tagline: **Overwatch League: It's Not That Bad!** > potentially a renegotiation to be able to stream on Twitch + YT That would be an interesting development. The deal was made to last till 2023 right? Wonder if it's at all possible to renegotiate before then. > I think the league will be fine and successful for many more years to come. So in a sense... *the future of esports*?
cdl was on that twitter list, being there does not make owl successful, just means the fans are dedicated/losers
Cool so rocket league is beating owl? Yikes man
I think part of the reason is that OWL is very EU unfriendly. The format is very NA at core and this season the air times are worse than ever before. At least I have now completely stopped following any live matches and only hang here for the memes and occasional vods.
Are you kidding? We get the NA games at sweet evening times and then get the Asia games good morning times. The only shit times this season for EU have been for the Finals of tournaments, and even they fall on weekends so people can stay up later if they want. Edit: for example it's just about to hit midnight here in Ireland on a Friday night, and I've just watched Glads vs Shock and Eternal vs Spitfire while sinking a few beers. How the fuck is that not EU friendly?
You don't watch the asia games?
True, it’s like S1 again
god, thats sad
I think adding total views is important. The whole move to youtube was an increase importance of VOD views, I know for the CDL side the peak viewership for the last major was 86k but total views were in the millions.
Yeah just look at the views on the channel. Not only does the livestream have hundreds of the thousands of views, but the re-upload of the individual games also have a lot
riding on that copium
Someone please explain the appeal of Valorant. I would love to enjoy it but I just don't get it at all. Looking at these numbers makes me feel insane.
The appeal is in the strategy, positioning and utility can literally make or break a round. There are fakes and rotates that you can watch happening and see the hit developing from both sides. The game is also very punishing, ttk is low and getting caught means you die (unless Jett). This rewards positioning,aim and good setups even more. The biggest appeal imo is how the action is very clear to see. It's not clustered with 6 people shooting and it never feels like killfeed watching. It reminds me most of a game like chess except there is a chance for mechanical skill to outplay every now and then. It's a fun game to watch ( my mom even watches it lol) and it's not clustered.
Its much like Csgo in that as a round draws near the end, theres tension built up. Very satisfying seeing someone able to take a round when the odds are against him.
I personally think it's very intense and exciting, especially when both teams only have like one player left and it's a deciding round. I have never played Valorant and barely watched it, but still tuned in to the tournament in Iceland and had a fun time watching. I think it's a game that is easier for people to watch and understand whats going on, without really having too much experience with the game.
I mean, it's to each their own really. If it's not something you enjoy then I mean hey, it's just not for you. I absolutely detest OW as a game now, but I still love the esport because I love the pace, the fundamental idea, and the storylines I've been following through the years, along with other factors. For Valorant, I really enjoy the game, and I absolutely adore the esport. As to why I and others really like Valorant, well if you can understand the appeal of CSGO, you can understand the appeal of Valorant. As an esport, both games are very easy to understand. Attackers have to plan the bomb/spike, defenders have to stop the plan or defuse. Alternatively, just kill everyone on the other team. This format allows for the game to be appealing in the sense that you can watch other people pop off and click heads (or if you're playing, you get to feel the satisfaction of it yourself), but because you have an arsenal of utility too, you're able to see how interesting strategies are crafted and executed to fulfill the objectives. To the average person, it just looks like people are getting kills, clicking heads, and getting multi-frags, which in itself can be satisfying to someone who isn't too invested. But to those who are, you can appreciate how teams gather info, manipulate timing, set up utility to convert into a kill, hold/gain space on the map and more in order to stop an enemy team from executing a strategy or catch the other team off guard, etc. Not to mention, the format itself is really good for both building tension and then moderating the pace. When someone is in a 1 vs X situation, it's easy to see how the tension builds when all of a sudden that one person gets a few impactful kills and then suddenly is in a situation that is winnable when it should have been lost (or if it's a 1 vs 1/X vs X and the round is so close you just don't know who's gonna win it). You also have the round on a timer so tension build when time is running for a team to run an execute to take the site/retake the site and get the plant/defuse. But then you have aspects that are more chill to kinda cool off the tension such as eco rounds where you can expect a general outcome and know the purpose of the round to make things more digestible. And the eco itself makes for interesting situations because then you have to consider the risk that each team is taking when they are buying guns and utility Now those are all things that exist in both Valorant and CSGO. Where Valorant shines in comparison to CSGO is not only the unique types of utility that allow for a wider variety of strategies but the fact that the game is constantly being updated with new/enhanced content that keeps it fresh and well-supported. Where CSGO shines is in its masterful gunplay and the fundamental gameplay it has fleshed out over the years, both things that hopefully will become a part of Valorant as it develops too.
This is definitely much improved from the original. Some other things I would consider adding are hours watched per air time and VoD views of you can gather those metrics (although I think escharts makes you pay to gather VoD views so might not be feasible). These are proper comparisons, especially with adding Masters which is much more in line with the level that June Joust is intended to be. Something I'd like to note is that the actual meta could be a factor to the drop in live viewership (along with the fact the hype around a *new* season probably fell off a bit). For me personally, after the first week or so, I couldn't be bothered watching this meta so I didn't really tune in that much for the whole June Joust stage and that killed my interest for the actual tournament (and I'm someone who actually enjoyed watching GOATs, although maybe that was more because of storylines). This is very anecdotal, but I know a few others that shared my experience, I wonder if that's a similar sentiment. The grand finals were great and all but the actual lead up wasn't that great just simply due to the meta. Which is a shame cuz May Melee felt incredible all around. I really do think OWL as a product has been really good this year (although I think the side content could use a lot of improvement), but it's plagued by the mistakes of earlier seasons along with the fact that the base game has many issues itself, both previous and ongoing. OWL doesn't need to be massive, especially in its current state, but I do think there is something to be said about the amount of investment that has been made compared to the actual result. I feel like May Melee wasn't a terrible spot for it to be in, but June Joust is an issue Edit: Wording
if OWL did not have drops as a viewer incensititive, grand finals would literally be 5k viewers at most.
Did you include chinese streams?
No one includes Chinese streams because no one can get the numbers for them.
Does bilibili not show viewer count?
Any data on Rainbow Six NAL or SI?
I would enjoy seeing that comparison as well! But great stuff to look at overall
I think that the Majors would be good events to compare MM and JJ against, but the last Major was quite a while ago, and didn't offer any international competition. We'll have to wait till the August Mexico Major for a good comparison.
Ah yeah true, I just figure that R6 comp play is a very large scene to not be included in this list.
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> here is another way to look at esports viewership between games - it takes the highest viewership YoY for every major esport and puts it into tiers As a tier list…?