Call of Duty League 2023 is now being broadcasted on both Twitch and YouTube — current effect on the league's viewership

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On April 7th, the organizers of the Call of Duty League announced that the league's official streams would return to YouTube Gaming. However, the broadcasts did not become exclusive to the platform: matches can still be watched on Twitch, which greatly pleased the game's community. The tournament's return to YouTube took place during the Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 4 Major qualifiers, and Esports Charts calculated how the addition of the second platform affected the league's overall performance.

Since the launch of the franchise league in 2020, Call of Duty League matches have never been officially broadcasted on more than one platform. During the first three seasons, the league had an exclusive agreement with YouTube, but starting in 2023, CDL began broadcasting on Twitch. Many top community casters, such as Scump, ZooMaa, and Methodz, started covering the league on Amazon's platform. Of course, this had a positive effect on audience growth. For example, Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 3 Major became the most popular tournament among majors in terms of peak online viewership.

Starting from April 7th, the Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 4 Major qualifier matches were streamed simultaneously on Twitch and YouTube for the first time. However, Amazon's platform completely dominated the total viewing hours. During the three days (from April 7th to 9th), the league's streams on Twitch gathered 1.3М Hours Watched, while on YouTube, this figure was only about 138.6K HW. In terms of average online viewership during the selected days, Twitch surpassed YouTube by nine times.

Perhaps the main effect of YouTube makes is that it elevates the role of official casting. For the second week, Activision's channels total Hours Watched increased by 12% compared to the first. Thanks to this, the share of the official cast in the total view time of the event slightly increased, from 39% to 42%.

TOP matches of the 2nd week:

The Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 4 Major Qualifiers are taking place online from March 31st to April 16th. Teams will compete for places in the major bracket. You can follow the progress of the qualifiers on the reporting page.