WEEK 9 PLAYOFFS VIEWERSHIP LOWER THAN WEEK 1

Next Level Take: I sure didn’t think I was going to write the words above 8 weeks ago when I started looking at E LEAGUE’s ratings. I’ve been rooting for E LEAGUE to succeed and whether I agree with some of the strategy or not; Turner clearly ran into some bad luck. Before going further, here’s how E LEAGUE’s first Quarterfinals performed in Week 9:

(Graphic: The Next Level)

Week 9 saw 226k Total Viewers and 132K in the 18–49 Demo. What’s the reason for the decline in ratings? First, we need to define “decline”. While the ratings have clearly dropped, in reality we’re only talking about a band of 20K viewers that E LEAGUE has generally fallen in. On the flip side, outside of the 1-hour production during the Week 7 Bye week, its about a 10% drop from the average.

Valve’s Counter-Strike Gambling Ban: This was by far the #1 comment, feedback and side conversations had after Tweeting the ratings yesterday. On July 13, Valve finally conceded to all of the Gambling backlash and said the sites would be receiving notices. I wrote in THE NEXT LEVEL 028 that it would be too early to tell the affect on E LEAGUE’s ratings due to Valve’s ban and I still think it’s early but the factor can’t be discounted. I believe that the highest consumer of Counter-Strike Gambling indexes way higher on Twitch than on TV; therefore the ratings shouldn’t have been affected too much.

This was by far the #1 comment, feedback and side conversations had after Tweeting the ratings yesterday. On July 13, Valve finally conceded to all of the Gambling backlash and said the sites would be receiving notices. I wrote in that it would be too early to tell the affect on E LEAGUE’s ratings due to Valve’s ban and I still think it’s early but the factor can’t be discounted. I believe that the highest consumer of Counter-Strike Gambling indexes on Twitch than on TV; therefore the ratings shouldn’t have been affected too much. Format: I’ll leave this to the million articles and the Counter-Strike Analysts I like but E LEAGUE’s format leading up and during the playoffs may not have been the best choice for viewership. Ill stick to talking about Media and Money.

I’ll leave this to the million articles and the Counter-Strike Analysts I like but E LEAGUE’s format leading up and during the playoffs may not have been the best choice for viewership. Ill stick to talking about Media and Money. Length: The Week 7 show was a 1-hour replay/production due to the Bye week — and it drew the 2nd highest ratings of the season. 3 hours that late on a Friday night is challenging. It’s not the NFL.

The Week 7 show was a 1-hour replay/production due to the Bye week — and it drew the 2nd highest ratings of the season. 3 hours that late on a Friday night is challenging. It’s not the NFL. Timeslot: I still keep coming back to this point. In my very first analysis of E LEAGUE in THE NEXT LEVEL 009, I said that the horrible showtime was more than likely due to “TV’s death slot” being the cheapest. Now take a look at this comparison between ESPN2 and E LEAGUE:

(Graphic: The Next Level)

Considering all of the money, all of the marketing, all of the hype around E LEAGUE — and the Playoffs draws less viewers than Madden; which was announced the day before? Same for the most recent EVO Championship on ESPN2, it beat E LEAGUE’s debut.

Outside of the Fighting genre being clearly easier to follow, there has to be another factor. When looking at the #1 eSports event of the year so far, it’s Mortal Kombat on The CW on a Monday night. I’m not saying that eSports on a Monday night would be positive ROI but that’s been the best timeslot we’ve seen for an eSports event so far.

This week we’ll get to see if my theory holds true. I’ve been doing pretty well on my predictions overall so I’m going to make another one: The Finals this Saturday at 4PM ET will draw 200,000+ 18–49 Viewers, which would be a 50% increase from the average.

Taking a look at the eSports schedule, there isn’t another big Counter-Strike event around to distract potential viewers:

(Source: Splyce.gg)

E LEAGUE ADDS BLIZZARD’S OVERWATCH

(Photo: Turner)

Remember back in THE NEXT LEVEL 022, when I predicted that Counter-Strike wouldn’t be alone for Season 2? Or recall in THE NEXT LEVEL 025 when I talked about Blizzard’s money moves into eSports? Well last week they came together in a beautiful sandwich when Turner announced their next foray into eSports with Overwatch.

I think this is a great move and highlights several things:

Turner is not starting with Overwatch like it did with Counter-Strike. A big announcement, league, teams, $1m+ prize pool, marketing, etc. etc. — they’re going much smaller and it shows a big change from Season 1. The initial start to Overwatch will only be a tournament not a full 10-week schedule like Season 1. Turner now gets data on Overwatch’s potential without the full investment; although I’d love to see the check that Blizzard got.

Saturday afternoon time slot for the Finals. Another big change from Season 1’s graveyard of Friday of 10PM.

Whether Turner launches a full 2nd league alongside Counter-Strike or several of these 1-off tournaments, I don’t think this will be the end of more announcements.

The brand potential is also much greater now. As I showed in THE NEXT LEVEL 007, Overwatch had six brand activations prior/with launch and two very big ones with Taco Bell and Razer. Watch for a big name Brand to be a part of the first event.

And if you don’t think Overwatch is going to be huge, I leave you Shaq Fu:

(Source: Twitter)

Finally, let’s welcome Geico to the party!