Call of Duty League Major 2 was a wild ride for CoD fans, with some crazy results, huge performances, and even a mid-tournament retirement. Perhaps most importantly to some, though, the tournament’s viewership reached dizzying heights, becoming one of the most-watched events in CoD history.
Atlanta FaZe took home the Major 2 trophy after beating out LA Thieves in a clinical 4-2 grand final.
This came mere hours after long-time Call of Duty esports veteran Anthony ‘Methodz’ Zinni announced his retirement live, on stage, in front of thousands of fans, his peers, and with his tearful family in attendance.
The tournament itself though garnered a lot of fanfare, more than almost every other CoD esports event in history, as the Major reached a peak viewer count of over 300,000 between the main stream and the increasingly-popular watch parties from the likes of Scump and ZooMaa.
According to Esports Charts, the Loser’s Semi-Final matchup between LA Thieves and OpTic Texas reached 301,953 peak concurrent viewers, which is the third-highest peak viewership recorded in CDL or CWL history — and the highest for an event that wasn’t the Call of Duty Championship.
Stats updated, 301K Peak Viewers for the match.
— Esports Charts 🇺🇦 (@EsportsCharts) February 5, 2023
Major 2’s peak fell behind only the CWL Championship 2018, which peaked at 324,086, and the CDL 2020 finals, which peaked at 331,558, when it comes to official competition.
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This incredible landmark came just days after Dexerto initially reported that the CDL was in talks with YouTube over renewing their exclusivity deal following the culmination of Major 2.
Viewership in general has been stronger across the board this season on Twitch, especially when you factor in the watch parties that are pulling in over 100k viewers themselves.
The league faced a lot of backlash to this report from both fans and even team owners, with OpTic CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez saying that he had heard similar, but that “I don’t think that the league would not talk to their partners who paid a bunch of cash to be a part of this franchised league.”
If Major 3, which is due to take place in Texas, ends up being streamed exclusively on YouTube instead of Twitch, it will definitely make for interesting viewing comparing viewership between the two.