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The current World of Warcraft 
raid race to world first has proven itself to be a challenging and extended fight to the finish for all of the world’s top guilds, and the inclusion of coverage by Red Bull as well as live streams from top guilds has been a boon for the grassroots event’s reach on Twitch .
Overall viewership for WoW on Twitch reached its best hours watched totals of the summer so far in the past week since the race began. The title’s 10.9M hours watched last week is the most it has recorded for a week since the week following the release of the WoW Classic beta in mid-May.
The race’s coverage on Twitch has been led by Method’s main channel so far, and it’s not even close. The channel has posted 6.7M hours watched since July 16 and averaged 28K concurrent viewers, and the race hasn’t even come to a conclusion yet.
Method’s dominance on Twitch comes following the esports organization’s decision to begin streaming the raid race in the fall of last year. Prior to Method, no top guilds streamed during the race to world first and won. Method has done so twice, and also managed to monetize its efforts as well spurred other guilds looking to grow the grassroots esports event.
After a well-publicized falling out with Method, Red Bull, which partnered with the world’s top guild for the raid race in January, announced its own plans to cover the race featuring other contending guilds, Limit from North America and Pieces from Europe.
Despite Red Bull’s prominence as a brand, the organization’s coverage of the race to world first has been a distant second behind Method’s channel. With just 1.2M hours watched over 190 hours of airtime, the channel has averaged just 6K CCV.
Related Article: World of Warcraft Raid Race Turns into Race for Viewers on Twitch
In fact, Max “Maximum” Smith, the raid leader of Limit, has had stronger viewership for his personal stream than Red Bull has had. The GM’s 1.6M hours watched across 122 hours of airtime has averaged 11K CCV, peaking at 23K (higher than Red Bull’s 14K peak).
Smith’s success comes in part due to the audio portion of his broadcast. While Method has set a standard of not allowing team communications to be broadcast on any individual’s stream or on the main feed, Smith has instead, allowed viewers to hear his guild’s strategy discussions. Additionally, he has said on stream that the donations to his stream during the event will be divided among his guild members.
Despite having the leading channel broadcasting WoW and not allowing players to broadcast audio of their voices during the raid, Method’s personal perspective streamers have managed to produce notable viewership as well.
Outside of Smith, who raids with Limit, the other top individuals broadcasting themselves in the raid race are members of Method. Co-founder Scott “Sco” McMillan leads the way with 1M hours watched across 122 hours of airtime.
Meanwhile, Mike “Gingi” Djebbara has recorded 307K hours watched, and Jimmy “Fragnance” Landqvist has racked up 347K hours watched. Both streamers have averaged 2K hours watched, and no other raid race participants have even managed to eclipse the 200K hours watched mark yet.
Though the growth of raid race has certainly made its mark on Twitch for WoW, the strength of Method’s brand as the leader in streaming the raid race has helped it maintain a hold as the premier source of coverage in the race to world first.
