TL;DR: The inaugural CDL season was capped off with a record-setting Champs weekend as the league set a new personal peak viewer record after switching to YouTube exclusivity.
The Call of Duty League season came to an end last weekend as the Dallas Empire defeated Atlanta FaZe to be crowned the first champions of the franchise-based league model. The final series drove massive viewership for the YouTube exclusive league as the peak concurrency has climbed YoY since 2018. This year’s incredible success could be contributed to a popular Call of Duty title in Modern Warfare drawing more consumers to the game or the franchised teams rallying up a strong fan base behind the location-based organizations. No matter the reason, the CDL capitalized on the opportunity with a phenomenal season and a new viewership record to hang their hat on.
- With the CDL hitting a peak viewer count of 339K this past weekend, it is now the all-time peak record for any Call of Duty event.
- The 339K peak this year came solely from YouTube viewership due to an exclusivity contract with the platform whereas past years were streamed to multiple sites.
- The highest peak viewer event of the Call of Duty seasons has more than doubled from 2018 to 2020 with a final growth rate of 115%.
