With the latest season of the Overwatch League starting off with a huge smash, some reports with numbers are in stating that the 2019 Season will outdo last years season in terms of popularity, success, and viewership numbers. Just goes to show how fast Overwatch’s eSports scene is increasing.
The first Overwatch League took place in the summer of 2018 and had over 10 million people tune in for the first week and the Blizzard Arena was completely booked for the full 4 days of the week for the event. The Overwatch League has started off the 2019 season with crushing numbers, surpassing last years viewership rates in its first week. Over 13 million people clocked in from their comfy homes while the whole Arena was booked for the entire week.
The second week of the season was also an improvement over last year, the average minute audience was 40% more than last year. Eight new pro teams have joined the Overwatch League this season with more franchises in North America, Europe, and China. In addition to all of this, thousands of fans gathered to cheer on their hometown teams.
Credit should be given where credit is due, the overwatch team consistently listens to its players and pushes out updates with new content regularly. The game has seen an increase in player numbers drastically ever since it’s launch, with more than 40 million players across PC and Consoles, the game is thriving. However, with games like Fortnite crossing 100M players last year and Apex Legend that has managed to cross 50M players in such little time, Blizzard might switch up Overwatch to a Free to Play model.
