Overwatch Contenders tournaments have (almost) caught up with Overwatch League by viewership

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Overwatch League 2023 - Summer Stage Knockouts, the final stage of the league's summer season, came to an end not long ago. Hangzhou Spark and Seoul Dynasty proved to be the best and moved one step closer to the Playoff stage. However, it is quite possible that the upcoming finals of OWL will be the last for these and many other participants: the future of the league is shady due to the numerous problems surrounding it.

The OWL does have a lot of problems: from financial losses to questionable experiments with the season format. In short, after this season, the clubs will be voting on whether they want to continue participating in the OWL or leave the league, receiving a negotiated compensation of around $6 million. Some organizations have already announced their departure — Chengdu Hunters disbanded their roster during the summer qualifiers. A representative from Guangzhou Charge also mentioned that their team agreed to receive a $6 million compensation. Obviously, the league will try to change the relationship formula with teams, but a new agreement must be signed by at least 2/3 of all organizations — otherwise, OWL may cease to exist in its current form.

Overwatch League Viewership Statistics

All of OWL's problems have one common cause — a decline in interest in the league. In comparison, Overwatch League 2023 - Summer Stage Knockouts attracted under a million Hours Watched and gathered 37.9K Peak Viewers. Three months prior, the Overwatch League 2023 - Spring Stage Knockouts had 2 million Hours Watched and 60.2K Peak Viewers. A self-explaining dynamics within one season.

Overwatch League and Contenders League Viewership Dynamics in 2023

It is important to note that these are specifically the issues of the OWL top division, as the Overwatch Contenders league, which is essentially the tier-2 scene of Overwatch esports, is actually experiencing growth in viewership. In 2022, the most popular Contenders tournaments gathered 15K-16K Peak Viewers. However, these tournaments are already attracting 50K PV in 2023, surpassing some of the regular season stages of the OWL. An interesting piece of know-how is that for the first time in 2023, teams from Contenders leagues have the opportunity to play in some OWL tournaments (after qualifications).

If we look at the entire history of the OWL, the league achieved its highest viewership numbers back in 2018 during the Overwatch League - Inaugural Season: Stage 1. At that time, it managed to gather 437K PV. Since then, surpassing this result has not been possible. The Overwatch League 2022 Playoffs was able to reach more than 397.8K Peak Viewers, but this figure is a real anomaly compared to other tournaments throughout the year.

Overwatch League Viewership Dynamics 2018 - 2023

There is a noticeable downward trend in audience reach. 2018 Overwatch League tournaments collectively accumulated over 70 million Hours Watched. But in 2022, this number dropped to 31 million HW, a 54% decrease. Peak online viewership in those same years decreased by only 9%, but this was due to an abnormal figure in a single tournament. In reality, the decline was much greater.

Why Is Audience Reach Declining? 

The organizers themselves are partly to blame for the decrease in viewership. The first major mistake was the exclusive agreement with YouTube for broadcasting matches. By giving up Twitch broadcasts, the league deprived itself of a large number of potential viewers. After all, the streaming service Amazon is more focused on the esports industry than YouTube. It is important to note that the Overwatch Contenders leagues are also covered on Twitch and community casting is even allowed there.

The second major mistake was the refusal to embrace community casting. Occasionally, the league allowed independent streamers to cover specific matches, but these were rare occurrences. Nowadays, it has become evident that top streamers can significantly improve the viewership statistics of leagues and tournaments, whether it be League of Legends, Valorant, CS:GO or even PUBG Mobile. Practically all top-level esports disciplines encourage community casting at their tournaments, while Overwatch League is solely focused on its own channels.

The decline in audience coverage is partly "blamed" on competitors. Shortly after the release of Overwatch, Apex Legends came out, and Valorant's popularity boom began a year ago in North America, South Korea, and China. 

It is evident that the Overwatch League needs a complete reboot, including not only updating the season format but also changing the league's philosophy followed by Activision Blizzard. The OWL has a significant number of problems, but even by looking at Contenders as an example, it is clear that discipline is still capable of growing the audience and attracting new viewers.