by in
The opening weekend of the Modern Warfare 2 Call of Duty League season recorded the fourth-highest viewership mark in CDL history.
Across the opening weekend of the 2023 Call of Duty League, the viewership peaked at 192,943 viewers — according to the stats released by Esports Charts.
The MWII Major 1 Qualifiers were only ranked below the last three CDL Championships on Modern Warfare, Vanguard and Cold War.
In 2019, the franchised Call of Duty competition came into existence and its streaming services moved exclusively to YouTube, but the viewership dropped dramatically between then and 2022.
However, at the start of the Modern Warfare 2 season, CDL returned to Twitch exclusively.
Week one of #CDL2023 had the FOURTH highest viewership in the Call of Duty League era, peaking at 192k (according to @EsportsCharts)
Top 5 all time
1) MW2019 Champs 331k
2) Vanguard Champs 275k
3) Cold War Champs 238k
4) MWII Major 1 Qualifiers 195k ⬅️
5) Vanguard Major 1 157k— CDL Intel (@intelCDL) December 5, 2022
The team that viewers wanted to see was OpTic Texas, as they recorded the two highest viewer counts — 170,766 viewers in their first match against Minnesota ROKKR, and 192,943 in their second match against Florida Mutineers.
The reason that the numbers are so impressive is that these matches over the weekend were only Stage 1 Major online qualifiers, and the numbers they are being compared to are grand finals with millions of dollars in prize money on the line.
We may only be one weekend in, but it seems that the move back to Twitch will be a success for the CDL in 2023.
