The Overwatch League roared to life last week at the Blizzard Arena Los Angeles, with four days of intense competition between all 12 teams of the world’s first major global city-based professional esports league.

There has been a long wait for highly-anticipated tournament to start and there was no shortage of fans for the opening week.

Millions of esports fans from all around the world tuned into the opening week to see if Overwatch really could hold its own in the world of esports giants.

The first Overwatch League season has started and there hasn't been a shortage of viewers yet

Incredibly, the inaugural week drew in over 10million viewers worldwide, accumulating from Twitch TV, MLG plus Chinese streaming partners ZhanQi TV, NetEase CC, and Panda TV.

And that isn't including the thousands of fans who flocked to the viewing parties in support of their local teams.

The opening day alone attracted an impressive 408,000 viewers on average per minute while the average for the week was 280,000.

On Twitch and MLG, the peak concurrent online audience of 437,000 was hit during the highly anticipated day-one matchup between Dallas Fuel and Seoul Dynasty. The match turned out to be the most exciting of the week and for pure entertainment value, will be hard to beat.

Over 10million esports fans worldwide tuned in for the Overwatch League's opening week

These viewing figures are especially impressive when you consider the fact that these games were streamed at a time that was less than favourable to the massive European audience.

Twitch will be delighted with the huge viewing figures after they agreed a two-year exclusivity deal with the Overwatch League which is allegedly worth over $90m (£65m).

And someone else who is very happy is president and CEO of MLG, Pete Vlastelica who said: 'We’re thrilled by the overwhelming response to the Overwatch League’s opening week of play.

'But this is only the beginning. With more than 35 million Overwatch players, the Overwatch League has the potential to become one of the most-watched leagues of any kind in the world.'

The Overwatch League starts up again on Thursday January 18 with San Francisco Shock facing off against Philadelphia Fusion.