Now that the Charlotte Major is over, we can begin to reflect on some technical parts of the tournament. Namely, the viewership.
According to escharts.com, a website that tracks combined main channel and co-streaming viewership, the most viewed match of the tournament was Team Liquid vs DarkZero in the semifinals. The second most-viewed match was the grand final between Astralis and DarkZero.
The third most-viewed match? The opening quarterfinal match between G2 and Team Liquid. Team oNe vs DarkZero and Oxygen vs Astralis rounded out the top five most-viewed matches.
Viewers watched 4,161,360 hours of the Charlotte Major, and the event was live for 63 hours and 45 minutes over the week. According to the charts, there were 65,000 average viewers, 121,000 at its peak.
The peak viewership was 20,000 higher than the peak viewership of the Sweden Major, and held slightly more hours watched and average viewership as well.
However, both of these numbers are still down from the Mexico Major, which held 137,000 peak viewership and 86,000 average viewers. The Charlotte Major was the first event in a US-friendly time zone since the Mexico Major. All in all, compared to previous events, there's still a slightly downwards tick in viewership, even with co-streaming and fan-friendly time zones.
The Charlotte Major had several factors that might have decreased viewership. The fan-favorite number one seed from APAC, Elevate, couldn't compete due to visa issues, DWG KIA didn't qualify. The majority of the Brazilian teams that qualified for the tournament were forced to play from Mexico and faced severe ping issues, causing frustration in the fanbase.
The matches were plagued by incessant tech issues. Additionally: the PGL Antwerp Major in Counter-Strike and MSI in League of Legends were being played -- Rainbow Six Siege was far from the only show in town over the weekend. Additionally, there's surely a good chunk of people in the crowd that would've watched at home as well, but there also might have been people who were drawn back in because of the crowd.
No matter the reason, the viewership numbers for the Charlotte Major were solid, and are further indications of how popular the LATAM teams are. LATAM matches accounted for three of the top five most-viewed matches during this Major, and FaZe themselves accounted for four of the five most-viewed matches in the Sweden Major. LATAM loves Siege, and the game will continue to grow in that region if it's nurtured correctly.
Additionally, Rainbow Six Siege is still technically on a bit of a slide, even if the meteoric drop-off has mostly stopped. The Six Invitational is still a massive draw, and the Majors are pulling solid numbers, but it's looking like it's going to take multiple seasons of few controversies, solid content added into the game, and increased endemic fan interaction before it fully recovers from the blow the pandemic era struck the game's community.