Over 10 Million People Watched the First Overwatch League

Blizzard has leaned in hard on Overwatch’s eSports viability, more than any other game they’ve ever made. Sure, they supported the Hearthstone tournaments, organized some WoW PvP at competitive levels, and obviously, they reveled in the unmatched success Starcraft enjoyed in Korea. But Overwatch, their latest smash hit, has been the horse they’re putting their real money on, which has been reflected in their over-the-top spending and marketing in the lead-up to the official start of the very first league.

And while they’re far from matching the kind of numbers that League of Legends or DOTA 2 can bring in, the numbers from the first tournament is been extremely promising.

To boot, over the whole week the stream - which was on Twitch, Major League Gaming, and a number of Chinese streamers - attracted an average of 280,000 viewers per minute, which doesn’t account for anyone who might have been watching on the same couch, nor the people who had watched the events live from the sold-out arena in LA. That’s good, but on the first day specifically, there was an average audience of 408,000 per minute, which means a good number of people just wanted to catch the opening act and dashed out until the final. During the last match of the week, where Dallas Fuel faced off against Seoul Dynasty, a whopping 437,000 people tuned in.

Either way, over the whole week, they raked in about 10 million views - not bad at all.

The first season of the newly-formed eSports league will run up until June, with the Playoffs and Finals wrapping up in July. These numbers will get better or worse largely depending on how well the hype is preserved. After all, everyone’s excited about these things at the very start, but staying power has always been a problem.

But this is Overwatch we’re talking about; it’s probably good on that front.