The Call of Duty League has recorded a new all-time viewership high on Twitch with CDL Major 3, as more viewers tuned into the historic event than any previous tournament since the swap to a franchised system.
The third Major of 2023, hosted by OpTic Texas at the Esports Stadium Arlington, has etched its place in the history books as the most-watched CDL event since the league kicked off in 2020.
With a peak of 333, 277 collective viewers during the grand finals, according to data from EsportsCharts, the series between hometown favorites in OpTic and foreign rivals in Toronto Ultra is now the biggest in CDL’s brief history.
While the central broadcast itself soared with six-figure viewership, this new all-time peak factors in a considerable amount more from watch parties and co-streams alike. In particular, Optic’s own Scump led the charge on the day, climbing well ahead of the CDL stream with more than 175,000 fans tuned into his watch along with CoD veterans filtering in and out.
When it comes to CDL-specific events, the previous record was held by the 2020 finals which saw a similar number of viewers jumping in as 331,558 fans marked the occasion. Just one other event has cleared the 300K figure in the past three years, that being the most recent tournament before OpTic’s LAN, the 2023 Stage 2 Major.
Of note, however, this new record pertains exclusively to CDL events, not Call of Duty on the whole. That record, instead, belongs to a Spanish MW3 OldSchool tournament that landed 439,776 concurrent viewers in 2022.
On its way to narrowly eclipsing the former record, Major 3 saw a rise in viewership day over day, in large part, thanks to OpTic’s exceptional lower bracket run. Having been knocked down right away, with an immediate 0-3 loss to Boston Breach, the hometown team had its back against the wall.
Not going out without a fight, however, the Green Wall then went on to win five matches in a row, securing a spot in the grand final for their troubles. It was this last series that led to yet another surge in viewers across the official CDL broadcast along with Scump’s co-stream, dominating Twitch as the two most-watched accounts at the time.
Clearly a great sign for interest in the league, it’s only a matter of time before we see if the CDL can carry the momentum into the fourth split and beyond as the 2023 season continues.
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