BLAST R6 Major Atlanta 2023 has become Rainbow Six’s least popular offline Major after recording a peak viewership of just under 80,000.
The final Major of 2023, which took place in the Gas South Arena in Atlanta, attracted an average viewership of 44,539 across 103 hours of air time, according to Esports Charts.
The most popular Rainbow Six Siege Major for peak viewership remains Six Major Raleigh 2019 (268,650). Last year’s second Major, which also took place in November, recorded a much higher peak viewership of 121,836, but a similar average viewers of 45,189.
2023 is the first full year that tournament organiser BLAST has run Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege esports scene following a multi-year deal between both parties. The competition’s ecosystem, and subsequent Majors, have previously been organised by ESL and FACEIT. The biggest change from BLAST’s R6 ecosystem has been its Major formatting, which includes the removal of a Round Robin group stage in favour of a Play-In and a Swiss Format Playoffs.
BLAST’s first Rainbow Six Siege Major, BLAST R6 Major Copenhagen 2023, took place earlier this year and secured a peak viewership of 118,877.
BLAST R6 Major Atlanta 2023 was won by the Brazilian organisation W7M esports, taking down LOS in the Grand Final and securing a large chunk of the event’s $750,000 (~£615,000) prize pool. However, the runners-up did win in one category as LOS recorded around 35,000 more hours watched than W7M, meaning that LOS had the most viewers watching its games throughout the tournament. LOS was the most popular esports organisation at the event when it came to hours watched.
The majority of the event’s viewership came from Twitch with a peak viewership of 66,271 whilst a smaller portion of fans preferred to use YouTube (15,530 peak).
Despite the two finalists being Brazilian organisations, Portuguese-language platforms did not perform the highest in terms of viewership. Portuguese-language platforms garnered a peak viewers of 23,999 whereas English-language platforms recorded 47,501 peak viewers..
During the event, Ubisoft unveiled a new operation for Rainbow Six Siege, Operation: Deep Freeze. The reveal is listed as the event’s third most popular segment by peak viewers (68,955), with the Grand Final being the most popular at 79,867.
BLAST R6 Major Atlanta 2023 saw a drop off in peak viewership that hasn’t been seen in Rainbow Six Siege since the regional online Majors of the COVID-19 era. However, despite this decrease, the competition’s average viewership is in line with last year’s event.
