Overwatch League 2023 — Pro-Am gets season off to sedate start

Loading

The Overwatch League 2023 - Pro-Am, an exhibition tournament of OWL and Overwatch Contenders teams, concluded on April 10. The viewership numbers were not as impressive as the main tournaments from 2022, but it was just a warm-up event, while the absence of a big name also played its part.

Twenty teams from North America and Europe battled it out online over 18 days for prize money of $100K. In the end, Florida Mayhem beat fellow OWL side Los Angeles Gladiators 4-2 to earn bragging rights and take home $50K, with the loser pocketing $20K.

  Overall stats from this Overwatch 2 competition   

The Overwatch League 2023 - Pro-Am did 36K Peak Viewers, with the peak match coming from the Group Stage Day 1 clash between San Francisco Shock and Florida Mayhem, a coastal derby of sorts. SFS the most popular team by Average Viewers, so it is no surprise they were part of three of the five most popular matches in this event.

The Overwatch 2 tournament also did 1.02M Hours Watched and 16K AV. Interestingly, the Grand Final was nowhere in the list of the five most popular matches from the competition, with San Francisco Shock‘s ouster in the Quarterfinals not helping matters.

With this being the Overwatch League 2023 - Pro-Am for the West region, English was almost the sole language of choice for viewers, with Korean and Japanese getting minute shares of the pie. When it comes to platforms, the league was solely broadcast on the official channels on YouTube.

The most popular and watched channel was the official Overwatch League English YouTube handle, with 35K PV and 939K HW. The official Overwatch Contenders channel also chipped in on both metrics, but it is clear one account did most of the heavy lifting.

  Comparing the two seasonal curtain openers from 2022 and 2023 by PV   

The Overwatch League 2023 - Pro-Am does not really have a like-for-like tournament from last year thanks to the massive changes made to Season 6. However, the season opener from last year, the Overwatch League 2022 Kickoff Clash, makes for an interesting contrast. It did much better viewership numbers, but it has to be remembered that it was broadcast on both YouTube and Twitch.

Also, the absence of a big name like OWL Season 5 winner Dallas Fuel, who moved to the East region, affected the viewership. This Texas side is one of the most popular in the sport, and it regularly brings huge crowds to its matches and events.

With other OWL Season 6 competitions also likely to be streamed on YouTube, it remains to be seen how the viewership numbers stack up when compared to previous seasons. For now, fans can’t wait for the season to kick off properly with the Spring Qualifiers.