Credit: Blizzard Entertainment
Mentioned in this article
Average viewership for the Overwatch League 
has continued to struggle on Twitch compared to the inaugural season last year as OWL finds itself in the dog days of summer.
In 2018, the league saw a dip in viewership for the final two stages as interest for the esport waned in the second half of the regular season that spanned January to mid-June. However, this year the decline has been matched by an overall decline in average viewership figures for the Overwatch League on Twitch.
Part of that declining viewership could potentially be attributed in part to a fragmentation of the league’s fanbase as OWL expands to include more teams with geolocated branding. With average viewership statistics for the top channels covering OWL down by 20-30K concurrent viewers year-over-year for each day of action, the total hours watched figures for the league were up because of an increase in games played.
Despite continuing the trend of lower average viewership, OWL accumulated 3.7M hours watched across the main broadcast combined with French, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian-language broadcasts. The figure is up from 2.9M hours watched last year across the English, French, and Korean broadcasts.
However, even the best day of viewership this year, Sunday – which averaged below 100K CCV, was below every broadcast from week three of Stage Three last year. Each of those broadcasts averaged above 100K CCV, and the strongest performing day averaged 125K.
Overall, the main OWL channel on Twitch reached 3.7M hours watched from Thursday-Sunday for all airtime, including re-runs and peripheral coverage. The figure is up slightly from the third week of Stage Three in 2018, generating 3.4M.
The upward trend in overall hours watched came with a drop in overall viewership on the main OWL channel. This year’s average CCV of 29K for all coverage, including re-runs, was down from 47K CCV last year.
Peak viewership of 99K CCV for the weekend came during Sunday when the Boston Uprising and Paris Eternal’s match went to a tie-breaking fifth map. That match was followed up by the Florida Mayhem defeating the Houston Outlaws 3-1 and the Los Angeles Valiant handed the Vancouver Titans their first defeat of the season in a 3-1 match. Viewership for all three matches hovered around 95K CCV or higher.
While Twitch remains the primary platform for measuring viewership habits of the core Western esports audience, it does not represent the totality of Overwatch League viewership. Fans can watch the action on OWL’s official website, Battle.net, and MLG. Additionally, matches are streamed in China on Zhanqi.tv, NetEase CC, Bilibili, and Huya, and Blizzard also has a deal to broadcast matches on Disney-owned platforms including ESPN, ABC, and Disney XD.
