Rainbow Six Siege Esports Grows Massively in 2021

Ubisoft has announced that every major region of the Rainbow Six Siege Esports world has broken records. The first two weeks of the new Rainbow Six Siege Esports programming broke records in peak viewership, average a minute and more.

The first Playday of the 2021 Season of the European League saw a massive viewership progression compared with last season. The trend continued in Playday 2, with the league reaching new heights once again on March 22. It looks like the European League scored its best peak viewership ever, with a 110K peak. When compared with the 2020 season, the value comes to around 117% compared with the most performing playday of the European League in Season 2020. With those results outlined, the second Season is looking fantastic. Furthermore, the peak was reached during an action-packed match between Rogue to Team Vitality. Rogue managed to overcome Team Vitality’s match-long dominion to send them to the overtime and finally seize the win. Vitality and Rogue are popular teams in the EUL, but by no means are they the best teams, as compared to the likes of G2’s fanbase.

Europe’s metrics for retention also head higher than before, with the Average Minute Audience (AMA) increasing by 190% compared with Season 2020’s most performing playday reaching 96K. The EU League values looked at during 2020 and the seasons before way around 15k average a minute. As you can see, it is a dramatic jump. 

Over in North America, it seems like the trend continued there. During the first match of the season, the North American League achieved its highest level of peak concurrent viewership with a massive 115K, according to Ubisoft. This corresponds to an increase of 318% compared to the best-performing playday in the 2020 season of the NAL. This comes after the third game of Playday 1 had 100k viewers, with beastcoast upsetting Season 1 Finals Champions, TSM.

Even in the smaller mainstream region, the like of LATAM, Mexico and the APAC regions all saw trends in the same direction. The LATAM League competition culminating in an 18k peak CCV and 15.4k AMA, Overall, this is an improvement of 474% and 656% on CCV and AMA compared to the best-performing playday in the 2020 Season. 

Moreso, Asia-Pacific’s North Division achieved 96.5K peak CCV and 76.3K AMA on Playday 2, gaining 345% and 336%, respectively. Also, the revamped South Division had strong result too, with values hitting a 71K peak CCV and 53.1K AMA. Ubisoft believes this illustrates the reinforced quality and competitiveness of the Australian and South-East-Asian scenes.

 

The @Rainbow6Game communities around the world are one big family that never cease to impress and amaze us. We are humbled and thankful when we see how many of you turned up for the kickoff or our esports season 🙏 pic.twitter.com/mlNAGrD9j9

— Rainbow Six Esports (@R6esports) March 26, 2021

Ubisoft revealed several things were changing at the start of the season, with the main change allowing Esports drops. Both players and viewers can earn Esports packs regularly by watching the competitive Leagues throughout every week. By looking at Twitch drops, players can earn at least three packs based on Week 2 content drops across all the competitive league streams. To unlock one, players need to watch at least four hours of content for every pack they progress through. Meaning Rainbow Six Siege Esports fans need to watch 12 hours to earn all three packs. This is largely due to the vast influx of viewers to the game.

Read More: Professional European Rainbow Six Roster, Cowana, talks EU League.

Although, it appears that the players of the regions are sticking around to watch the content, aiming to farm the packs out. With the interest in the packs, perhaps there will be some solid cross over, and some more casual fans may become Rainbow Six Esports fans as a result. The true test of these metrics will come a few weeks down the line, as player interest drops off, as is normal in the world of gaming and esports. Either way, the new investment into the Rainbow SIx Esports scene is great, and it is a solid platform to see how far Siege can grow.