Call of Duty League 2022 Stage 1 Major reaches third highest viewership peak in CDL

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The Call of Duty League 2022 Stage 1 Major, hosted by OpTic Texas at the Esports Stadium Arlington, wrapped up recently with OpTic Texas claiming the first Call of Duty championship of the year at their home grounds. 

The offline event, accompanied by a live crowd, featured all twelve Call of Duty League franchises in a battle for a $500 000 shared prize pool. The top-tier CoD tournament was also the first CoD LAN event since the Call of Duty Championship 2021, which reflected in its outstanding viewership. 

The main viewership-driving force throughout the competition was the rivalry of OpTic Texas and Atlanta FaZe, which replaced the strongest rivalry in the league after the merger of Team Envy and OpTic Gaming earlier this year. 

At first, OpTic Texas reverse swept the defending CDL champions Atlanta FaZe in the semifinals and sent them into the lower bracket. However, the team fought its way through Los Angeles Thieves, Toronto Ultra and London Royal Ravens to face OpTic Texas once again. The thrilling grand final matchup ended up with a 5-2 victory of OpTic Texas, which absolutely applied its home-field advantage. 

At its peak, the grand final match was watched by more than 157.4K concurrent viewers, breaking the record as the most popular regular-season CDL event (by peak viewership) since the league’s launch in 2020. At the same time, the tournament reached the third-highest viewership peak in the league, placing right after Call of Duty League 2020 Finals and Call of Duty League Championship 2021. 

In 35 hours of Air Time, CDL 2022 Stage 1 Major generated over 2.44M Hours Watched, which is also the third-highest HW count among CDL events since its launch two years ago. On average, 69.9K viewers tuned in to spectate the competition. 

While the most popular team of the event (by Average Viewers) was OpTic Texas, the most watched (by HW) was Atlanta FaZe with 1.15M Hours Watched. The next was OpTic with 945.8K HW, followed by London Royal Ravens, Los Angeles Thieves and Toronto Ultra. 

Some of the players that caught the crowd’s attention during the event were the OpTic players Indervir "iLLeY" Dhaliwal and Anthony "Shotzzy" Cuevas-Castro, who showed incredible performances in the grand final, as well as the tournament MVP Brandon "Dashy" Otell. Moreover, hitting his 30th major event win, OpTic’s Seth "Scump" Abne has become the first player in CoD history to win major events in 10 separate Call of Duty titles.

Compared to the regular season of CDL 2022 Stage 1, the major saw 76.17% higher average viewership. The growing trend is also visible in the interannual comparison with the last edition of the event. Compared to 2021's CDL Stage 1 Major, the league’s average viewership went up by 10.86%, while its concurrent viewership increased by 33.32%.

Despite its decreasing trend during the previous Call of Duty League season, as well as the fact that the start of the new CDL season did not go off with the same level of hype among the audience as it did last year, the most recent major showed that the league continues to keep its relevance among the CoD fans, especially if a proper dose of team rivalry is served. With that said, it is questionable whether the growing trend will continue, given how the league’s viewership performed during the previous season, and that the 2022 season will be likely impacted by the freshly revived Halo esports.