Now that several CoD tournaments have been played, it is time to take a deeper dive into CDL viewership. In this piece, you will be able to find how the CoD professional league sizes up to other popular titles such as Dota 2, CS:GO, League of Legends and Overwatch.
The CDL viewership so far - stats and numbers
So far, a total of 3 CDL tournaments have been played. From our perspective, viewership in these events is not so high. Below, you can find relevant stats and numbers for the three events mentioned*.
- Call of Duty 2020 Launch Weekend – 102,891 peak viewers - prize pool NA
- Call of Duty 2020 London – 111,129 peak viewers – prize pool $100,000
- Call of Duty 2020 Atlanta – 111,897 peak viewers – prize pool $100,000
*Keep in mind that we took all of these stats from the esportscharts. If you want to find more information about CDL viewership, you can look it up here.
CS:GO viewership - topping the charts
There is no denying that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the most popular esports title on the globe. There were over 20 CS:GO tournaments played so far in 2020. We want to keep this list short, so we will provide you with the three most popular events.
- ICE Challenge 2020 – 217,314 peak viewers – prize pool $250,000
- BLAST Premier Spring 2020 – 390,827 peak viewers – prize pool $300,000
- IEM Katowice 2020 – 1,002,132 peak viewers – prize pool $500,000
If we compare the stats from the CDL events and the ones from CS:GO tournaments, we can easily spot huge differences. IEM Katowice 2020 is not even a Major and it attracted almost 10 times the amount of users CoD was able to gather.
On top of that, ICE Challenge 2020 was not even that popular in the terms of top teams and players attending and it still doubled the number of peak viewers Call of Duty 2020 London attracted.
Dota 2 viewership
If you are following the esports scene, then you probably know that the numbers are not looking that good for Dota 2. Player count is constantly dropping despite the game being free to play.
However, Dota 2's biggest event of the year – The International – will still break all the records and set another milestone regarding prize pool money.
Here are the most popular Dota 2 tournaments in 2020 so far:
- WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020 – 233,124 peak viewers – prize pool $300,000
- DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major – 475,236 peak viewers – prize pool $1,000,000
- WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Mad Moon – 295,110 peak viewers – prize pool $300,000
It is easy to spot that a bigger prize pool does not guarantee higher viewership. The Leipzig Major has by far the biggest prize pool so far in 2020, and it still was not able to attract even half the viewers IEM Katowice 2020 attracted.
We believe that this says a lot about the state Dota 2 is in. As mentioned above, The International will probably continue to break records but Dota 2 should not be a one-trick pony.
League of Legends viewership
We can never know with LoL viewership since most of these events are live for several months. However, we were able to find some of them that are trending right now. Here are the numbers:
- LEC Spring 2020 – 475,725 peak viewers – prize pool NA
- LCK Spring 2020 – 661,523 peak viewers – prize pool NA
If we compare CDL viewership to the numbers for League of Legends, we would once again find a lot of gaps. However, it will be interesting to see how many peak viewers the CDL playoffs will attract.
It is also important to mention that League of Legends already has a well-established esports scene, while CoD is still in its early days.
Overwatch viewership
After a very successful 2019, Overwatch is nowhere to be found. After some arguments, popular Overwatch commentators even decided to part ways with Overwatch.
A month ago, the Overwatch League 2020 started and the overall results are not that good.
- Overwatch League 2020 – 138,576 peak viewers – prize pool $5,000,000
As you can see from the numbers, CDL viewership is on par with Overwatch and that says a lot about the state Overwatch is in. Hopefully, things will look better for them in the upcoming months.
As for you, CoD fans, if you would like to support your favorite esports title, it's easy – just tune in and watch!
