The first game in the AT&T Annihilator Cup 2026 concluded on May 8, becoming the series' first event to reach 200K concurrent viewers, according to Esports Charts.
The AT&T Annihilator Cup series brings together some of the most famous content creators from across the globe. They are split into teams and battle across numerous esports titles, with a total of $200,000 up for grabs for the teams and contestants.
How did the AT&T Annihilator Cup 2026 for Call of Duty break the series record?
The A&T Annihilator Cup 2026 for COD became the series' most popular tournament yet, becoming the first event in the series to pass a peak of 200K viewers. The closest any event came to touching this mark was when the League of Legends competition from 2025 hit 199,914 Peak Viewers (PV).
The presence of top content creators and influencers definitely helped attract more viewers. A lot of these participants had made names for themselves by proving their mettle in various video games, and the interest in seeing them duke it out among fans and fellow streamers proved to be an audience driver.
In fact, compared to the four events held last year, only one could match the number of channels that live-streamed the first tournament of 2026. A total of 43 channels covered the action, including non-participating creators like Thomas "zoomaa" Paparatto and Anthony "shotzzy" Cuevas-Castro.
Which was the most popular channel to livestream the AT&T Annihilator Cup 2026 for Call of Duty?
Winning captain TheBurntPeanut was by far the most desired creator to broadcast the matches. His streams across Twitch and YouTube outperformed every other co-caster, reiterating the Virtual YouTuber's (VTuber) stance as one of the biggest names in video gaming and entertainment content today.
Emily "Emiru" Schunk, another popular Twitch star who made her name playing games like LoL and World of Warcraft, was the second-most popular streamer. Her coverage of the matches across this event peaked at 13,669 viewers, just above scump and Jaryd "Summit1g" Lazar.
What happened at the AT&T Annihilator Cup 2026 for Call of Duty?
The first tournament in this year's edition saw four teams of five streamers each battle it out in the legendary shooter, Call of Duty. Team Peanut, consisting of TheBurntPeanut, Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng, Bryce "HutchMF" Hutchinson, Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag and Yvonne "Yvonnie" Ng, emerged as the victor here.
The side took home 20 points and grabbed the early lead on the fledgling table. The performance of former COD pro Seth "Scump" Abner was noteworthy, as he put up a 3.53 K/D stat at the end of the event, but could not lead his team, captained by Ludwig "Ludwig" Ahgren, to victory.
Nevertheless, Scump's scintillating displays helped the Call of Duty competition at the A&T Annihilator Cup 2026 record 227,526 (PV), as per Esports Charts data. The Optic Gaming creator also finished among the four most popular names to co-stream the action.
What's next in the AT&T Annihilator Cup 2026?
The next event in the AT&T Annihilator Cup 2026 is League of Legends. Since the event follows a Thursday-only format, this tournament will be held on May 14 at 7 PM ET.
The format is the same as with the COD event, as the four teams will compete in a series of round robin matches against each other. The top two teams from the round robin will compete in a Finals match to determine the winner, with points based on their finishing position added to the overall table.
Header image via AT&T
