Overwatch League Final Breaks OWL Esports Ratings Record

Saturday’s Overwatch League final between the San Francisco Shock and Seoul Dynasty was the most watched OWL match in its three season history, Activision Blizzard
ATVI
said Tuesday.

An average global audience of 1.55 million saw San Francisco capture its second straight championship with a four maps to two victory, a 38% increase from the Shock’s 2019 win over the Vancouver Titans in last year’s final. The match was shown digitally this year on YouTube, CC, Huya and Bilibili after the 2019 final was broadcast on ABC and held live in front of a reported 10,000 fans and Philadelphia’s Spectrum Center.

“I’m so proud of the entire Overwatch League staff who worked incredibly hard to put on a great show for our fans, Jon Spector, Blizzard Entertainment’s vice president of esports said in a statement. “YouTube is a great partner for us and our viewership in Asia was massive as Grand Finals ran live in primetime for those audiences, which was great to see.”

The 180,000 people who watched on YouTube was also a season high in Overwatch’s first year with its new streaming partner after spending the first two seasons on Twitch. A vast majority of the audience came from China, accounting for 1.39 million of that total, a 260% increase from last year, Activision Blizzard said.

The third season of Overwatch League was a turbulent one in so many ways. It was supposed to be the first season that all 20 city-based teams based in the United States, Canada, England, France, China and South Korea would play in front of home fans. But after an exciting opening weekend of homestands, things was obviously quickly halted by the coronavirus pandemic. The league had to fully move to online play the rest of the season, but found a routine with three in-season tournaments and some regular season weeks leading into the playoffs.

In understanding that things were tough for the league and its owners in 2020, Activision Blizzard allowed OWL and Call of Duty League (which had its own record breaking season finale) teams to defter multi-million dollar franchise fees for this year, according to the Washington Post. With the hiring of former Major League Baseball deputy commissioner Tony Petitti as its new president of sports and entertainment, as I first reported, Activision Blizzard is betting on 2020 just being a mere blip as it looks toward a steadier future where esports regains momentum as one of the world’s ascendant sports. Whether we get to that point in 2021? As with everything, we’ll see.

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