SHOUTcraft America Winter numbers were fairly comparable to the first event.

Day 1 capped out at 19,886 concurrents with Day 2 hitting 26,314 concurrents. Day 2 beat the finals day of SCA Season 1 significantly, though lost out to Day 1 of SCA Season 1 and Day 5 (which had IdrA casting very shortly after his departure from EG, which is what I attribute the viewership to). Unique viewers for Day 1 were at 67,640 and Day 2 99,660, which exceeds the number of uniques for all but Day 1 and Day 5 of SCA Season 1. It also more than doubled the number of Uniques for the finals of SCA1. The finals numbers for SCA1 are deceptive since they were held on a weekday, which greatly harmed the US viewership.

I attribute lower viewership on Day 1 to the clash with ASUS Northcon as well as the postponement of Scarletts match and the fact that it was too late for most Europeans to watch at that point. US viewership dwarfed other countries though UK and German representation was also surprisingly strong, both of which actually beat Canada in terms of viewing demographics, which is strange. It is also possible that Day 1s forfeits stifled Day 2s potential as the credibility of the event was harmed.

I view this event as a success overall. This was a more "honest" event in terms of its viewership. SCA Season 1, particularly Day 1, was heavily pushed by an all-star caster lineup and rode the hype train of anti-WCS sentiment. I deeply regret the latter. I do believe negativity can solve problems and is a useful tool when channeled correctly, but crucifying Blizzard for the benefit of that event did not justify the ends. With a smaller prizepool, a shorter event and a sponsor that actually had something to sell, I think we demonstrated a successful tournament model that worked for everyone. Viewership will never be as high as a live event, but 100k uniques and 26k max concurrents is more than adequate for an online only event consisting of only America-region players. There are very few if any online only tournaments that pull in these kind of numbers. This model is sustainable and assuming sponsors have a product to sell, I believe they will receive excellent ROI for their money.

I'll do a full writeup at some point this week with full numbers and more thoughts (including screenshots for full transparency, because fuck fudging).