Overwatch League has been broadcasted on Disney XD and a couple of ESPN channels, but the semifinals and grand finals on ABC was the league’s network television debut. Despite people’s criticisms, the results were better than many expected.





Showbuzz Daily published a list of Nielsen ratings stating that the Overwatch League grand finals, aired on ABC on Sunday March 24, managed to pull in 367,000 viewers. It also showed that the semifinals, that aired on Saturday March 23, had 306,000 people watching on ABC.





Although this may seem like a small viewership compared to the other sporting events broadcasted on the network, such as college basketball, that were aired at the same time, considering this was the League’s network debut, these figures show just how popular Overwatch League is.

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Furthermore, there was a 607,000 Average Minute Audience (AMA) across every platform on which fans can watch the league (including ABC, ESPN, Twitch and the Overwatch League site) during the finals. The AMA included 390,000 viewers located solely in the United States. League representatives were able to get this AMA figure by calculating the average amount of viewers watching over the whole broadcast.





There was an estimated AMA of 105,000 viewers for the Overwatch League finals that were in the all-important 18-49 age group. This is a group that advertisers are always looking to attract, and are willing to drop big money on adverts to do so.





The stage two semifinals and finals will also be broadcasted on ABC, as well as the All-Star games, airing from May 15 to 16.