Call of Duty League 2023: Playoffs becomes most-watched Post Season event

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The Call of Duty League 2023: Playoffs ended yesterday with New York Subliners thumping Toronto Ultra 5-0 in the Grand Final to claim the trophy and avenge an earlier loss to its opponent. It ended as the most-watched event in the series while drawing the highest number of average concurrent viewers, proving that the league’s return to Twitch and eventual split broadcast with YouTube was received well by fans.

In a battle between two of this season’s major winners, New York Subliners — the only side to claim multiple majors in 2023 — deservedly came out on top. As a result, the side took home $1M in prize money, while runners-up Toronto Ultra pocketed $660K. OpTic Texas — the most popular COD side today — finished a disappointing sixth to end its journey without a win.

  Overall stats and popular matches from the Call of Duty League 2023: Playoffs   

The Call of Duty League 2023: Playoffs recorded 294K Peak Viewers during the summit clash between New York Subliners and Toronto Ultra, who also met in the Winners Final, with the Canadian side coming out on top. However, it was the only game from the last day to make this list, with the rest of the matches coming from the first three days.

Unsurprisingly, it was OpTic Texas who had the most appearances on this ranking with three such games, followed by New York Subliners thumping Toronto Ultra with two each. A large reason for last-day matches not making this list is that OpTic Texas failed to make it past the Elimination Round 2, where it was beaten by eventual fourth-placed side Seattle Surge.

Despite missing out on a whole day’s action thanks to its early elimination, OpTic Texas ended as the most popular side, being the only one to cross the 200K AV mark. Intriguingly, the tournament winners did not make the top three on this list, with a surprise name making it to third despite exiting at the Elimination Round 2.

English was more or less the only language that made a mark at this CoD competition, a similar situation across the CDL. Activision will want to pull in more viewers from other languages in future events to help bring up the numbers. Moreover, Twitch took up more than 80% of the overall viewership pie, with YouTube contributing slightly over 15%.

Two official English channels of Call of Duty ended in the top three of most watched and popular at this tournament — which has more or less been the case throughout. However, the gap between the first and second was pretty narrow on both metrics, with the name in question not at all shocking.

Scump once again proved his clout, finishing as the second most watched and popular channel and further establishing his credentials as a premier gaming/esports content creator globally. In fact, the former pro-turned-content creator at times performed better than the official Twitch channel, no doubt helping this Call of Duty League season become one of the most successful ever.

  Comparing the four seasons of the Call of Duty League   

With the Call of Duty League 2023: Playoffs also registering 4.4M Hours Watched and 175K Average Viewers over an airtime of 25 hours, it became the best-performing event in the series when considering both metrics. In terms of peak concurrent viewers, the only better event was the Call of Duty League 2020 Finals, which did 12.7% better than this year’s championship. This was despite the season getting off to a good start and the return to Twitch expected to raise numbers across the board.

When comparing the peak concurrent viewership of the season-ending championship to the five majors held across the year, it comes in the third spot, behind the Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 3 Major and the Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 2 Major, with both crossing 300K PV. The common denominator in these two competitions was that OpTic Texas finished in the top four, with the side’s only other such finish coming at the Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 4 Major, whose own stats suffered due to an overlap with the VCT 2023: Americas League.

2023 has undoubtedly been a successful season for Activision and Call of Duty, with viewership numbers mostly on the rise and different teams pulling their weight to make the league an interesting watch. The organizer will do well to stick to a formula that worked so well in 2024 as well, with only minor tweaks here and there to enhance a product on the up.

Also, with the COD season done, fans can turn their attention to other big-ticket events like the World Series of Warzone 2023 - Global Finals and the CODM World Championship 2023. The former will be the first-ever in-person WSOW Global Final and emanate from the Copper Box Arena in London in September, while the biggest esports competition in the mobile version will be held in December.