The Overwatch League 
continued its trend of year-over-year viewership growth on Twitch through the middle weeks of this year’s five-week long first stage.
The main Overwatch League channel, combined with alternative-language channels, averaged 131K concurrent viewers in week four, adding up to 3.7M hours watched across the weekend. Those statistics are up from an average of 99.5K CCV for live coverage on the same channels last season, recording a total of 2.44M hours watched.
As has been the case all season, an increase in live coverage due to league expansion resulted in a significant boost in total hours watched, but the league has still managed to significantly outperform last year’s overall average CCV figures every day since the third day of coverage on week one.
Overall viewership on the first two days for week four was down significantly compared to previous weeks in the season due in large part to a lightened schedule for action on Friday. While Thursday’s three matchups accrued just 636.8K hours watched for the day, Friday’s two matches racked up 836.1K CCV.
Every week before this one, Friday’s slate involved at least four matches, and last week, there were five matches on Friday. Though this significantly skews the total hours watched for any given Friday night, Thursday’s dip in overall viewership is paired with a dip in average viewership. Every Thursday thus far in the season has had the same number of contests.
Peak viewership of 154K CCV for the weekend came on Sunday when the Shanghai Dragons defeated the defending champion London Spitfire 3-2. The second-highest peak for the weekend was 141K and came during the final game of the weekend when Vancouver Titans defeated the Chengdu Hunters 3-2. The matches were two of just three contests to go to a fifth, and decisive, map. The other contest to go five maps was the Los Angeles Valiant’s loss to the Philadelphia Fusion , but that match took place on Thursday, the only weeknight that games take place.
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 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.
