Day 3 of the Halo Championship Series (HCS) Kickoff Major in Raleigh broke its own previously set viewership records, hitting 267,000 concurrent viewers at its peak. When Day 1 came around and set a standard for Halo Infinite’s LAN scene, the matchups on the final day set a new bar. According to Esports Charts, the tournament ended with over 113,000 average concurrent viewers throughout the three-day event.
Breaking their own records
With Day 1 of the HCS Raleigh event ending with over 100 thousand concurrent viewers. That was enough for it to top any previous Halo event’s viewership. But, as the event went on and the stakes were raised, more fans tuned in. Tahir Hasandjekic, the Halo Esports lead at 343 Industries, who tweeted about the first day viewership, saw that record broken on the last day.
This tournament is absolutely unreal.
Approaching 200k concurrent across all platforms, channels, and co-streamers. Records have been smashed. #HCS
— Tashi (@Tashi343i) December 19, 2021
After his tweet, the event eventually hit the 267,000 mark. Just over a quarter of a million Halo fans were watching the event. These numbers include the main streams on YouTube or Twitch along with the co-streams across both sites. It helped that fans of the game were watching due to the free items that the event offered to fans. Either way, the numbers are big for the first event. The Halo 5 championships didn’t even see viewership numbers like this.
Some other notable numbers according to Esports Charts include that fans watched over 3.6 million hours over the weekend. Also, the most popular matches by peak viewership in descending order were the final between Cloud9 and eUnited, the loser’s finals between eUnited and FaZe Clan and lastly the more recent matchup of Optic Gaming and Sentinels.
Now, the year progresses and the planned roadmap for Halo esports continues. Only time will tell if this high viewership continues for future LAN events, or if it will transfer over to online tournaments.
Published: Dec 19, 2021 10:19 pm