Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 4 Major viewership sees dip after overlap with VCT 2023: Americas League

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The second-last major of the Call of Duty League 2023 regular season, concluded last weekend. It ended up becoming both the third-most-watched and third-most popular event in the series, with only the Stage 1 Major trailing in both regards.

The Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 4 Major was won by Los Angeles Thieves, who battled past OpTic Texas 4-2 in the Grand Final. It was the third straight major to feature one of these two sides in the summit clash, with the latter still looking to win a title. The winner took home $200K and 65 CDL points, while the runner-up pocketed $120K and 50 CDL points.

  Overall stats and peak matches from the competition   

The tournament hit 276K Peak Viewers thanks to the summit clash between arguably two of the biggest names in Call of Duty esports. The top five popular matches list was dominated by four sides, with OpTic Texas being the most frequent, appearing in four of these games.

Interestingly, the Day 3 clash between OpTic Texas and Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 1 Major winner New York Subliners was in the fifth position on this, pointing to fans’ wish to see these two duke it out early on in the event. The losing finalist was in all the three most popular games list, including two battles with Los Angeles Thieves.

CDL 2023: Stage 4 major teams' popularity

The Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 4 Major also notched 4.47M Hours Watched and 153K Average Viewers over an airtime of 29h. When it comes to the most popular side in this competition, it was OpTic Texas leading on both these metrics by a huge margin.

The Dallas-based organization has repeatedly been the most supported side at the CDL, but it has been unable to replicate this following into a tangible reward. However, with two Grand Final appearances in four majors, perhaps it is just a matter of time for the roster before they step atop the podium.

Coming to platforms, the Call of Duty tournament was split between Twitch (86.76%) and YouTube (13.24%). This was a big jump for the latter — which barely got a look in during the first three majors — mostly thanks to the official stream returning to YouTube midway through the competition’s qualifiers.

Scump continued to rule the roost when it comes to steamers' numbers, as he has been doing across the Call of Duty League. He was the most watched and popular streaming channel at the fourth major, although it was a close fight when it came to the former stat with the second-placed handle.

Stage 4 is the third most popular competition among the four Call of Duty League Majors so far, behind Stages 3 and 2, in that order. In terms of watch hours as well, it lies third behind these two tournaments.

  Comparing the four majors' viewership records  

A big reason was that OpTic Texas, clearly the most popular side here, had lesser games to play en route to the Grand Final this time compared to the previous major, where it was struggling and ended up in the lower bracket of the Playoffs. That is why its AV stats were also very similar to the second major, where, again, it had to play more matches via the lower bracket to reach the last few rounds.

Moreover, there was an intriguing trend at the CDL 2023: Stage 4 Major and the VCT Americas, with games in both events seeming to be interconnected on the nights of April 23 and April 24. Several times, the former’s viewership grew when the Valorant competition’s audience fell, and vice versa.

It might just be that both shared common viewers who switched between both events, which perhaps also contributed to the CoD showcase’s Grand Final not having a bigger PV number.

Fans can’t wait to see if OpTic Texas can finally break its duck at this year’s Call of Duty League come the fifth and final major in Toronto from May 25 to May 28. Judging by the numbers so far, fan support won’t be an issue, so it is all to play for come the Call of Duty League 2023: Stage 5 Major.