Overwatch esports viewership in 2024 looks promising after OWCS introduction
Following the struggles of the Overwatch League, Blizzard Entertainment announced a new format for Overwatch esports moving forward: the Overwatch Champions Series. The esports scene is moving away from the franchised system which was a key feature of the Overwatch League, instead favouring a more traditional esports structure. The first Stage 1 events of the new OWCS have finished, and viewership for the esports discipline has been fractured across the globe through regional events.
The Overwatch esports scene now features regional splits for three Major regions, Asia, EMEA, and North America, rather than one consolidated Overwatch League. While this has had a negative effect on the overall peak viewership for the esports discipline, it allows regional teams to rack up support and fans before moving onto the international LAN events, which may allow for a higher peak viewership in the long-run.
EMEA and North America will host two stages for each split, but the Asia region will only employ one singular Stage 1. The Asia circuit has also been divided into three smaller subregions: Pacific, Japan, and Korea. These three subsections compete for spots at the main Asia Stage 1 event, which was the region’s premiere event.
As it stands, the first step of the OWCS has garnered 7.6M Hours Watched across all three major regions. The move from one singular franchised league to many regional events has allowed Overwatch to consolidate viewership from around the globe in the build-up to its major LAN events. Expectations for viewership at the upcoming Overwatch Champions Series 2024 Major are high, which will take place at DreamHack Dallas at the end of May.
The most popular match of Stage 1 was Insomnia’s game against Crazy Raccoon. The match received 61.2K Peak Viewers, despite only being one of the Upper Bracket Quaterfinals matches at the Overwatch Champions Series 2024 - Asia Stage 1. The popularity of this match largely reflects the Japanese audience for Overwatch, which has established itself as the largest regional audience of Overwatch esports in early 2024. Insomnia is a Japanese-majority team, and although Crazy Raccoon is fielding an all-Korean roster, the organization itself is Japan-based and highly popular within the country.
Aside from Japanese and English-speaking audiences, Arabic-speaking audiences are also on the rise for Overwatch. Arabic viewership reached a peak of 10.8K concurrent viewers during the Overwatch Champions Series 2024 - EMEA Stage 1. Twisted Minds, the champions of the regional Stage 1 event, are fielding a Saudi Arabian-majority roster, and the esports discipline will feature at the Esports World Cup 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, later this year.
The OWCS is operated by Saudi-owned ESL FACEIT Group in collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment, and the EWC 2024 may be the first of many Saudi events for the new stage of Overwatch’s esports scene. Before moving on to a breakdown of the regional viewership for Overwatch so far this year, let’s take a look at how this year’s viewership compares to 2023’s.
The OWCS 2024 Stage 1 events highlighted high regional viewership around the globe, but still marked a step downwards from the viewership achieved by the OWL 2023 Spring events. These OWL events include: Overwatch League 2023 - Spring Stage Opens, Overwatch League 2023 - Spring Stage Qualifiers, and the Overwatch League 2023 - Spring Stage Knockouts.
Compared directly to last year’s OWL, the Overwatch Champions Series marked a decrease of 17.3% for watch time, despite recording almost 100 hours more broadcasting time, and a decrease of 42.3% in terms of Average Viewers. Although viewership statistics have shown a decrease in viewership, the OWCS 2024 Stage 1 events reflect regional viewership, rather than a collective global viewership for the OWL. A direct comparison between these leagues and formats will be more conclusive once the first major international LAN event of the OWCS takes place later this month.
The regional events at the first stage of the OWCS may receive lower concurrent viewership than the OWL, but it presents sponsors with opportunities to connect with a condensed regional audience, which may be attractive for those wishing to expose their brand to specific audiences. Rather than paying a large fee for access to Overwatch’s global audience, partners of the OWCS in 2024 can appeal to the regional audience most relevant to their needs.
Regional viewership for Stage 1 events of the OWCS, by average and peak concurrent viewers
As it stands, the major Asia events for the OWCS have been the highlight of 2024 so far. At 39K Average Viewers, the league stands strongly ahead of both North America and EMEA, although its advantage is lessened in terms of peak viewership.
The Asia event benefitted strongly from effectively being the playoffs stage for the entire region, as teams had already battled against their own region in the Japan, Korean, and Pacific events. This allowed the event to not only generate a high peak viewership, but hold a higher average viewership throughout the event, as the early-stage qualifier games had already been carried out in the three minor regions which make up Asia. In terms of peak viewership, the hype for the three Major regions is largely similar, although North America stands a small step behind both Asia and EMEA.
The most popular Overwatch League event of 2023, the Overwatch League 2023 Playoffs, received 157.7K PV. As it stands, the OWCS 2024 may eclipse this event in terms of popularity, if the esports discipline can effectively combine regional viewership for its international LAN events.
Overwatch 2 has three major LAN events up-coming for 2024; the OWCS 2024 Major will kick off in Dallas later this month, the Esports World Cup 2024 will take place in July, and the OWCS 2024 Finals will cap off the year in Sweden this November. The move to a more traditional esports structure may work out well for Overwatch 2, and fans of the discipline should keep a keen eye on the upcoming Major in Dallas: if this event can generate higher viewership than the OWL in 2023, things may be turning around for Overwatch.
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