The Overwatch League finals were broadcast on ESPN, but odds are that if you watched them you did so on Twitch or other streaming services. And the numbers bear that out, too; it turns out that viewership of the finals on ESPN was rather poor. Looking at the Nielsen ratings reveal that Overwatch did quite poorly by the standards of shows around it and other shows in the same time slot.
If you’re dreading or hoping that this means the death of the league itself, however, you should back away from that, since broadcasting this was in and of itself a marketing stunt and intended to push awareness more than draw viewers. Still, it doesn’t seem like a great start for the competitive side of the game in broadcast format, although at least it’s better than watching people playing poker.
