Another fucking one. Many pros and players who have a competitive mindset in general (me included) are not enjoying this game considering how shit the T2-T3 scene is and in general the entire competitive system. Soon OWL be the only thing left in the rubble. Sad. Blizzard is too focused on pumping money into esports.
Which isn't a good thing is it? it's incredibly naive to focus only on the main league in any sport, after all where are the players coming from to join the OWL? Blizzard are neglecting Overwatch outside the OWL yet will be expanding the league in the future, if everyone has fucked off because of the neglect where are Blizzard and the franchises going to get players from to join new teams?
It's not like they have to pump millions into Contenders and the likes do they? hell they don't even need to have LAN finals if it means players can have a sustainable income to keep them playing OW until the time comes they might end up in the OWL.
Well hard focus only on OWL is bad, but have to say that (if all teams actually want academy team) 13 NA, 2 EU, 4 China and 1 Korea Academy teams is probably better than same number of "random" orgs, which might not be as invested into Overwatch as Academy team would be. That's good for NA based players as it secures at least 13x3-5=39-65 NA players being paid even, if every team would get 3 imports from Korea/EU/Australia/Pacific. Of course there could be teams without getting any imports so would be bigger number for NA players in Contenders. Obviously not so good for most of the other regions yet, but will have to see how things go.
At the moment it's too NA focused though, but that's partly because of all the games are played in NA, but will be interesting to see, what does saturday/sunday games mean for viewership as more EU viewers are able to watch. No idea how much from their current viewership is from each region.
It's unlikely that Contenders will ever reach that high viewership, but it's really hard to follow multiple regions in Contenders with limited time. Sometimes it just feels there's too much Overwatch going on.
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