European teams draw most viewers at first games of new Rainbow Six Siege 2023 season

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Rainbow Six Siege saw the start of another esports season. In 2023, the team-based tactical shooter by Ubisoft will have a renewed format, and a new tournament operator will manage regional leagues and majors. Esports Charts tells you more about the details and provides a first snapshot of viewership in the leagues that will be launched.

The 2023 Rainbow Six Siege esports season will differ slightly from previous years. Teams will still compete in regional leagues for quota places at Majors and ranking points to qualify for Six Invitational. But the number of regions in the new season has changed. Previously, the Majors participants were determined in five regional leagues: Europe, North America, Brazil, as well as APAC North, and APAC South. The new season features separate leagues for Japan, South Korea, Oceania, and Latin America, as well as South Asia and the MENA region. Compared to Six Jönköping Major 2022, the geography of the league has expanded greatly — teams from Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other countries can now compete for a ticket to the World Cup. 

The format of the Majors has also changed: the number of participants in them will grow from 16 to 24 teams, and the system will become more complex. Previously, teams played a regular Group Stage and a single-elimination bracket. Now the main part of the tournament will be divided into three stages: Group Stage, the Swiss-system tournament, and only after that — Playoffs. This format will allow strong regions to bring more teams to the Majors. For example, at Six Jönköping Major 2022, only two teams from the APAC North (Japan and South Korea) qualified, but at the upcoming BLAST Major Copenhagen 2023, each of these countries will be able to field three teams. The situation is similar to Brazil, which now does not have to share its quotas with other Latin American countries.

We should remind you that the organizer of the regional leagues and Majors on Rainbow Six Siege in 2023 will be the tournament operator BLAST — this announcement was officially made by Ubisoft on February 18. This will be the first collaboration between the companies. Previously, ESL and FACEIT mainly worked on leagues and tournaments of the game.

What was the Start of the Regional Leagues?

Almost all regional leagues have already started and had their first matches. While the European league is leading by the number of viewers — the first game between G2 Esports and Team BDS on the first day of the tournament was watched by more than 43.4K Peak Viewers. The rest of the matches drew from 31K to 36K Peak Viewers. Most of the fans watched the English-language broadcast on Twitch. 

We should remind you that in the offseason, the European league has undergone some changes. The Natus Vincere organization decided to disband the team and leave the discipline — instead of it, the WYLDE team got a slot. At the same time, due to the organizations' merger, Rogue passed its slot to KOI (the majority of players retained their places in the team and continued to play under the new tag). As a result, one media tag replaced another media tag. It will be interesting to see how this will affect the league's final viewership.

The Brazilian league ranks second in popularity among regional leagues. It is slightly behind Europe in terms of Average and Peak Viewers, but well ahead of the other regions by both metrics. The series between MIBR and w7m esports became the most popular match of the first game day there.

The South Korean league has the weakest indicators so far — the broadcast of the first matches there attracted only 2K-4K viewers. This is about ten times fewer compared to the top regional leagues. 

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The best teams of the Rainbow Six regional leagues will receive quota places at BLAST Major Copenhagen 2023, the tournament with a prize pool of $750K. It will be held in May, but the organizers have not announced the exact dates yet.