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The Halo World Championship 2022 came to a close on October 24 and marked the end of the season. The event, which was the first complete Halo Championship Series since introducing the Halo Infinite version, suffered a poor viewership record.
OpTic Gaming emerged as the winner of the tournament, but despite the team’s amazing feat, the viewership number of the World Championship was not impressive.
The future of Halo esports was put under question after the tournament’s viewership numbers were calculated. According to Esports Charts, the accumulated hours for all matches in the Halo World Championship 2022 was 1.9 million hours, with 34 hours of airtime. The HCS Kickoff Major and the HCS Anaheim surpassed the tournament in this category with 4.2 million and 2 million views, respectively.
The World Championship recorded 55.7K average viewers and a peak viewership of 143,585. The grand finals on Playoffs Day 2 saw OpTic Gaming and Cloud9 face off and reeled in the most views of the event. The match brought in most of the hours watched in the accumulated number.
Although the number is commendable, the grand final of the 2022 Kickoff Major recorded a peak viewership of 267,279. Call of Duty also brought in a much higher viewer count and more hours watched than the Halo World Championship 2022.
The esport title, which is Halo‘s regional console shooter opponent, held its CDL 2022 playoffs in August this year and brought in more than 3.2 million hours watched. The competition’s grand finals also recorded 275,000 in peak viewership despite having a few hours less runtime than the Halo tournament and streaming exclusively on YouTube.
For the Halo World Championship 2022, more than 97% of its viewers watched English broadcasts of the event, while the other 2.7% were in Spanish. Regarding platforms, more than 91% of the hours watched were from Twitch and 9% from YouTube.
During the tournament, Halo Infinity reached a peak of 130,000 viewers on Twitch, which is the highest in 2022. HCS Kickoff Major Raleigh 2021 was the only event that brought more views.
Besides the official Halo Twitch channels and Halo Esports on YouTube, other community casters like Anthony ‘Shotzzy’ Cuevas-Castro also covered the tournament. The Call of Duty pro player brought in the largest audience of the tournament.
The Halo World Championship 2022 had 20 teams participate, and 16 moved past the tournament’s play-in to the main event. OpTic Gaming, who won the tournament, faced off and defeated Native Gaming Red, Gamers First, and Sentinels before facing Cloud9 in the event’s grand finals.
The North American squad took home $400,000 out of the $1,000,000 prize pool, while Cloud9 got $220,000.
In most cases, the World Championship, which symbolizes the end of the season, usually brings in the most hours watched and the highest peak viewership of the year. This applies to esports like Call of Duty, Apex Legends, Valorant, Dota 2, League of Legends, Rocket League, R6 Siege, and others.
The Halo World Championship 2022’s inability to beat the viewership and hours watched of previous tournaments made esports the only major competition to fall behind.
Some esports fans previously lost interest in the tournament when 343 Industries announced the changes made to its crowdfunded prize pool. The HCS 2023 in the Halo Infinite era will get into full gear with the Kickoff Major. The event will be held in Charlotte from February 24 to 26.
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