Call of Duty League is the official esports tournament from Activision. The event is dedicated to CoD: Black Ops Cold War, which was released in November 2020. In our new article, Esports Charts will tell you about the format of the event, the results of stages and majors, as well as what happened to the viewership dynamics from stage to stage.
Launched on February 11th, Call of Duty League 2021 was split into five stages and five majors that took place after the end of the group stage. On average, each stage took two weeks, and another week was spent on the majors. At the same time, this year’s format is different from 2020, when the league was divided not into stages, but into events assigned to cities.
The total prize pool of the entire league in 2021 was $5M, and competing for it were twelve teams, the popularity of which will be covered in a separate article.
Analysis of the main stages of the Call of Duty League, excluding the majors
The first stage of the Call of Duty League began on February 11th and showed the best results when compared to the subsequent events. In total, it collected 2.9M Hours Watched and 131K Peak Viewers at the Atlanta FaZe vs. Chicago Optic match. During the second stage, the Peak Viewers and Hours Watched indicators decreased by 28% and 41%, respectively.
The third stage slightly improved the Hours Watched results, while the Peak Viewers indicator continued to decline. The fourth stage showed the worst results in the series, but the finals slightly improved the situation. The last stage collected 1.3M Hours Watched and 85K Peak Viewers (34% less than at the first stage). At the same time, the fifth stage has the smallest number of Average Viewers.
Overall, the main stage of the Call of Duty League collected 9.3M Hours Watched over 250 hours of air time and was watched by 37K Average Viewers.
Analysis of the Call of Duty League majors
Each major stage ended with a major. The first two stages lasted five days, but starting with the third stage, this number was reduced to four. The dynamics shown by the majors aren’t as bad as those of the game stages, but the first major still leads in terms of Hours Watched: 1.6M. The first event was also standing out with the highest number of Average Viewers: 63K.
Despite the first stage leading in two main metrics, the Peak Viewers indicator was achieved at the matches of the third major – with 135K of them spectating the encounter of Optic Chicago and Toronto Ultra.
The fourth major saw another drop, but the league’s final major managed to even the situation out somewhat, still being 16% short of beating the results of the third major.
In total, the group stages and leagues for Call of Duty League 2021 amounted to 16.6M Hours Watched over 388 hours of air time. The league was watched by 42K Average Viewers, with matches of the Optic Chicago team causing the greatest hype.
Optic was the leader in terms of Average Viewers during every stage except for the third major, which was when their rivals from Toronto Ultra took the lead. We'll cover the most popular Call of Duty League 2021 teams in more detail in the future article.
Comparing the results of the Call of Duty League with those of the Overwatch League, we can see that CoD is ahead. Among all the stages of the league, the first stage stood out the most in terms of Hours Watched, while the major of the third stage gathered the most viewers. The viewership dynamics were uneven, featuring a drop in the middle of the league.
The final major did somewhat better, but still stayed behind the third stage in terms of results. Next, the teams will clash at the Call of Duty League Championship 2021, which will be held on August 19th. This will be the LAN final in Los Angeles, where the teams will compete for $2.5M.
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