Thread by @mannyanekal

🧵1/ @overwatchleague Grand Finals Viewership Analysis.

Here are the stats that @Activision released for 2020 and 2019.

While the headline is "1.55M +38% YoY" that's highly misrepresentative.

Here's why:

2/ Of the 1.55M Global AMA, 90% of that audience is China (1.39M).

While Chinese streaming sites #'s are still suspect re: of AMA, the bigger issue is do US brands care about China?

I'm sure @TMobile (@SFShock ) and @bumble (@GenG ) don't.

3/ You can always tell the bad data from what's missing and or 2020 is US Only AMA.

The data from 2019 says 472,000 AMA - however a vast majority of that comes from the @ABC broadcast that generated 367,000 viewers.

https://twitter.com/mannyanekal/status/1179167041384845312?s=20

4/ Because 2020 wasn't on TV, you can only compare digital viewership.

According to @EsportsCharts , the Avg. Viewership was 113,750 and 92,890 or a drop of -18% for Western viewership.

(Note that AMA and Avg. Viewership are different but are the closest 2 metrics vs. Peak)

5/ By my estimates, based on the US time zone for the 2020 Finals, going up against @lolesports #WORLDS2020 ,no TV broadcast and the switch from @Twitch to @YouTube (the least factor), the US AMA drop is much higher than -18%.