ESTNN Esports Logo

HCS Raleigh Surpasses 250K Viewers On Championship Sunday

| Tags: , | Author
HCS Raleigh Surpasses 250K Viewers On Championship Sunday

Competitive Halo Infinite is here to stay.

The Halo Championship Series (HCS) hosted the first Major of the season in Raleigh, North Carolina, this past weekend. Expectations were at an all-time high following a successful Halo Infinite multiplayer launch last month. The first few weeks of the HCS saw record-breaking viewership for online seeding tournaments and qualifiers. With storylines aplenty developing, all eyes turned to the Raleigh Convention Center, where hundreds of teams competed in Halo Infinite’s first LAN competition.

Viewership hovered around 60K on Twitch to begin the weekend and soon reached astronomical numbers on Championship Sunday. HCS Raleigh was the perfect start to the most impactful season in the history of competitive Halo.

HCS Raleigh Improves From 60K to Over 250K Concurrent Viewers on Sunday

The competition in North Carolina heated up on Friday in front of more than 60K viewers on the primary broadcast. Despite untimely game crashes and delays, Esports Engine remained persistent, as did online stream watchers. Days one and two brought an average viewership between 50K and 65K for Pool Play and early Championship Bracket action.

That figure quadrupled on Championship Sunday, where teams such as Sentinels, OpTic Gaming, FaZe Clan, Cloud9 and eUnited mixed and matched in several intensifying sets. Matches went down on four separate Twitch feeds, but none could rival Halo’s official channel.

According to Twitch Tracker, the main stage stream averaged 100K viewers throughout the day and surpassed more than 150K toward the conclusion. Halo Esports and Viewership Lead at Microsoft/343 Industries — Tashi — announced that HCS Raleigh-related broadcasts stretching across all platforms exceeded 260K concurrent viewers.

Grand Finals Generate 120K Consistent Watchers on Twitch

Fan-favorite squads Sentinels, OpTic Gaming and FaZe Clan, exited the tournament in the early evening on Sunday. Eventually, the Grand Finals featured a Winner’s Bracket Finals runback between Cloud9 and eUnited. It seemed viewership could somewhat drop late in the final series, but it didn’t. Instead, the main Twitch broadcast enjoyed 120K consistent viewers as Cloud9 looked to send eUnited home and claim the HCS Raleigh Championship.

It’s an understatement to say that competitive Halo is peaking at the absolute perfect time. Call of Duty’s CDL season has not begun yet, and it seems there’s a new titan on top in the first-person shooter genre. There’s no telling where Halo Infinite goes from here, but a consistent 200K concurrent viewers during the season’s first Major Championship Sunday is a reassuring sign.

Feature Image: HCS