Vitality becomes Rocket League world champions for second time
14 August 2023
French esports organization Vitality is having a fantastic year so far. After winning the Counter-Strike Paris Major earlier this year, by beating German side GamerLegion in the Grand Final, they recently also brought home the Rocket League 2023 World Championship. For the second time in its history, Vitality crowned themselves as best in the world, this time by overcoming Swiss esports organization Team BDS in a relatively one-sided final. This meant that Vitality prevented BDS from becoming back-to-back Rocket League world champions.
Vitality dominant in Grand Final
The Rocket League World Championship 2022-23 was part of the twelfth season of the Rocket League Championship Series and took place at the impressive PSD Bank Dome in the German city of Düsseldorf. The event was organized, as usual, by developer Psyonix, and sponsored by Mobil1, which helped secure a guaranteed prize pool of no less than $ 2,1 million. The Grand Final took place on Sunday, August 13th, and saw French organization Vitality square up against reigning world champions Team BDS.
Even though Vitality has been on a roll this season, claiming the Spring Split Major earlier this year as well, many of the viewers both in the stadium and online expected more from BDS. Despite their recent successes, the Geneva-based organization never truly got into the game during the final, which explains the 4-0 final score.
The first game immediately showed that Team BDS was going to be in for a hot evening, with their opponents quickly recording a 0-3 victory on Mannfield (Night). Game two saw BDS failing to score a goal as well, while Vitality found the virtual net once, resulting in a 1-0 victory and a 2-0 overall score. By game three, BDS seemed to find finally find their footing, scoring after a few seconds and making it to 3-3 before the French organization kicked it up a notch and also took home this game: 4-3. Team BDS now needed a minor miracle to even just get back into the race, but Vitality never allowed it to happen. In the fourth and final game, on Utopia Coliseum (Dusk), the French took the lead within twelve seconds and didn’t let it slip anymore, therefor crowning themselves world champions for the second time in their history. Vitality won $ 600.000 in prize money for their impressive performance.
New peak viewership record
According to data from Esports Charts, the 2023 Rocket League World Championship set a new record for peak viewership with 468,292 peak concurrent viewers. The event did not exceed last season’s average concurrent viewership totals, though.
“Our team, one that’s full of so many talented people, is on a mission to prove out the idea that Rocket League is the perfect esport”, says Murty Shah, Esports Product and Operations Lead at Psyonix, “The vision is to go from city to city, putting on the best LANs we can, to showcase our beautiful game. This Worlds was the culmination of that vision. To make something I only dreamt about for so many years come to life on this scale has truly been the privilege of a lifetime”.