Halo Championship Series 2024: Arlington Major became the most watched tournament in the series in two years

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Arlington Major finished in the USA on March 17th, one of the premier tournaments in Halo Championship Series 2024. The event featured the top Halo teams worldwide competing for a prize pool of $250.000. It attracted over 109.6K Peak Viewers, marking the series' best turnout in the past two years and the fourth best in its history.

The HCS 2024: Arlington Major was the first major event of 2024. Besides the prize money and ranking points, the tournament also allocated slots for the upcoming HCS 2024: London Major, scheduled for May-June, which will conclude the first split of the current season. Two more majors will be held in Atlanta and Salt Lake City in the second split of the Halo Championship Series.

The biggest surprise of the HCS 2024: Arlington Major was the early elimination of Sentinels. Despite reaching the top 4 at last year's world championship, the American team failed to advance from the group stage at the Arlington Major. Other top teams easily progressed to the playoff bracket, where Spacestation Gaming emerged as the strongest contender. In the decisive match, SSG defeated OpTic Gaming with the score of 4:3. Interestingly, OpTic was on the verge of victory, leading the series 3:1, but then lost three consecutive maps.

This victory marked Spacestation Gaming's first major trophy. Last year, the team finished second at the Halo Championship Series 2023: Fort Worth Major, losing to OpTic Gaming in the final. At the Halo World Championship 2023, Spacestation Gaming secured a top-3 placement.

HCS 2024: Arlington Major broadcasts generated nearly 1.3M Hours Watched, marking the series' best performance in almost two years. For comparison, the HCS 2023: Fort Worth Major and HCS 2023: Arlington Major accumulated 1M and 1.2M HW respectively.

Compared to previous majors, the average audience hasn't changed significantly. Currently, Halo majors attract around 40K average viewers, with the number doubling and even tripling at peak times.

Most watched tournaments of Halo Championship Series

The popularity of Halo tournaments is also maintained thanks to community casting. For example, matches of the HCS 2024: Arlington Major were covered by Scump and summit1g, top American streamers. Their channels ranked among the top three most popular during the tournament: only the official Halo channel attracted more viewers.

One of the competitors to Halo in North America is the team-based shooter Call of Duty. When comparing the Halo Championship Series 2024: Arlington Major to the Call of Duty League 2024: Stage 1 Major, the latter showed significantly better statistics in watch time and concurrent viewers.