Overwatch League Had More Than 10 Million Viewers In Its First Week

Published: January 17, 2018 5:23 PM /

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overwatch league san francisco shock vs. london spitfire blizzard arena

The Overwatch League, Blizzard Entertainment's professional e-sports league for their first-person shooter Overwatch, has had more than 10 million viewers in its first week according to a press release from the organization.

Featuring 12 teams from cities in the United States, Europe, and Asia, the Overwatch League is in its first year as an e-sports organization. It ran a weeklong preseason at the end of 2017 and they recently kicked off the regular season last Wednesday. The league runs from Wednesday through Saturday each week with three matches consisting of four maps apiece (with the option for a fifth map as a tiebreaker).

Opening day saw an average audience per minute of 408,000, numbers that leveled off to 280,000 for the week. Viewers were split across Twitch, MLG, and the three Chinese streaming partners ZhanQi TV, Netease CC, and Panda TV. The combined Twitch & MLG audience hit a peak of 437,000 for the match between Seoul Dynasty and the Dallas Fuel. Participation in the real world was quite healthy as well; tickets for opening week at the Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles Country were completely sold out.

If you missed out on the first week of the Overwatch League, you can catch the VODs from the preseason and the first week of matches on the league's official website. Summaries of the past week's events and the following week's upcoming games can be seen in the Watchpoint: Recap Edition and Watchpoint: Preview Edition shows, respectively. Do bear in mind that the Watchpoint: Recap Edition will contain spoilers for the previous week's matches. You can also check out the current win/loss records of the league's twelve teams.

The Overwatch League's second week will begin tonight at 7:00 PM with the San Francisco Shock facing off against the Philadelphia Fusion. The Florida Mayhem is scheduled to take on the Seoul Dynasty at 9:00 PM, and the Houston Outlaws and Shanghai Dragons are set to go head to head at 11:00 PM. You can view the league's matches at overwatchleague.com or at twitch.tv/overwatchleague.

What do you think of the Overwatch League having more than 10 million viewers in its first week? Do you think the league will have long-term success? What was your favorite match of the week? Let us know in the comments below!

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A photograph of TechRaptor Senior Writer Robert N. Adams.
| Senior Writer

One of my earliest memories is playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I've had a controller in my hand since I was 4 and I… More about Robert N