Popular streamer Felix “xQc” Lengyel is claiming that the Overwatch League inflated its viewership numbers by viewbotting, and people are calling him out for “coping.”
The Overwatch League was hype. It was. The first few seasons were among the best esports I ever watched (outside the FGC). But Blizzard crashed hard. It fumbled the OWL so badly, reducing viewership and hype by switching to YouTube Gaming. Among other bad mistakes. Blizzard ultimately had to pay out all of the franchise teams’ organizations when the OWL failed to get the sponsors and income they had promised.
However, xQc is now claiming that even those good seasons were all lies.
xQc Responds To Esports Fans Claiming He is Just “Coping” After Being Terminated From Dallas Fuel
While reacting to a 2019 video of billionaire Mark Cuban discussing the OWL’s peak viewership of 300,000, xQc claimed that those numbers were inflated.
“These numbers were so botted,” xQc said. “These numbers were so botted, it’s comical. Brother, for multiple years, they tried to hide the numbers.”
xQc then claimed he had heard very different figures from someone at Major League Gaming, back when the Overwatch League was testing its preseason on that platform. An “inside whistleblower” told xQc that the number of people actually watching was quite low. This caused xQc to say a very insightful: “Yo!?”
xQc reveals he planned his exit from Overwatch esports after finding their 300k viewers on Twitch was only 14K real viewers
pic.twitter.com/PEJDe9h7Qz
— xQc Daily (@xQc_dailyy) April 30, 2026
At this point, xQc said he’d already signed up for another season. But he apparently went into panic mode and started organizing his exit.
“Chat, I was already organizing how I was going to exit over Overwatch League and save myself. How does it make sense for me to be a player and a brand, marketing myself? You know what I mean? It doesn’t make sense. There is nothing to gain… I had to get the f*** out of there,” xQc said.
He added that it felt like “charity work,” with Blizzard “sucking the blood” out of him. He wasn’t able to make videos, stream, or vlog while working with the Overwatch League. He felt he was “losing everything.”
In response, a lot of esports fans said that xQc was just “coping” with getting suspended from the Overwatch League. In 2018, xQc made homophobic remarks on stream directed at a rival playing for the Houston Outlaws. He was fined $2,000, and the Dallas Fuel suspended him for the remainder of Stage 1.
A few months later, xQc used an emote that was considered racist while using “disparaging language” against various Overwatch League casters and players while on social media and Twitch. He was fined $4,000 this time. Dallas Fuel terminated his contract, and xQc left the OWL.
Esports fans pointed out that xQc probably didn’t have any sort of plan and just fell back on streaming once he was let go. But xQc fought back against these claims. His counterarguments didn’t make him seem like a good person though.
He said on X: “Cope for what (???) I wasn’t showing up to practice well before I was even suspended the first time to stream and transition to variety, bum.
“Let me guess, it’s not bots, it’s embeds. It’s not inflated metrics, it’s drops. Etc etc. Did you forget that the Season 1 contract we ALL signed was modified cuz of me to allow more streaming? Brother, I was planning my exit on MEDIA DAY.”
Fans replied that xQc could have just left instead of agreeing to sign another contract. They also argued that he may have left after having a bad performance that season. But xQc is keeping to his story, and plenty of fans believe him.
A conclusion: “Getting kicked from the Overwatch League was unironically the best thing to ever happen in your life, so who cares either way.”