Overwatch League announces seventh city and future plans

#1

Admirable

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will Meza light a candle for the death and rebirth of Overwatch? PogChamp

#23

Meza

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No candles yet. Gotta find out more about their plans :d

#2

Pixelfish

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And thus begins the rebirth of Overwatch.

#3

LaurenceR

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Entirely linking teams to cities is a big risk. It adds a local aspect to it, but with only 7 teams so far (I know there'll be more but realistically most people won't have a local team) they need to be able to encourage people to watch games even if they have no links with that place whatsoever.

I can see what they're trying to do: get traditional sports fans into eSports, and get eSports fans involved with traditional sports orgs. If it works out then that's huge, but if it fails, there'll be no viewers.

I guess only time will tell

#6

KuroiRyuu9625

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Most people in any sport don't have local teams though.

I like hockey but with only 31 teams, and worst only 6 of them being in Canada, for me "local" takes on a much broader meaning and it should hopefully do the same for others that are really invested in the sport/eSport.

You're correct in what they're trying to do, and I believe that was the perceived goal ever since they first announced the model way back when. Best case scenario they get the best of both worlds with both local fans and remote fans who either like individual players and follow them around or just like the team itself regardless of where it is.

Worst case is that only hard core Overwatch fans care and that the league/scene dies for lack of support.

I look forward to seeing what happens but am obviously hoping for the best here. The bigger this get the higher the chances it can properly expand and hopefully revive regions that really need it, sooner rather than later.

#11

muerte

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imho the way to do this should be where the small local leagues, online-tournaments and LAN-events would be the base to set Overwatch e-sports to be even a thing. For example, i highly doubt that CS:GO would be even close to the state where they are now, if Valve would have just created 1 annual/season based league and it would not have the small grassroots level thing going on from the start, good example is Copenhagen Games, which has never been best organized event, but was at the start of CS:GO one of the tournaments, where all the best were, nowadays it serves it place being a place for tier 2-3 teams to shine and make their name on LAN enviroment with small prize pool, but lot of talent.

From European point of view, this feels really weird, it's not only that Blizzard is only giving shit to EU community by doing this, but also that lot of Europeans have already left the game, cause there is no real scene or possibility to compete anywhere.

#13

poi98

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The point is that no one is interested in investing on OWL in EU because the scene dies a long time ago.....
if contenders Eu will have some succes ( as viewers) there will be investment.....

#12

Samba

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I don't live in the US but I still got an Islanders and Seahawk jersey at home. Linking teams to a city doesn't necessarily remove a bunch of fans just because the aren't from that city. I'm still a Misfits fan even though they are now the Miami Misfits. This is actually better because now I know they will be playing matches on a regular schedule and they aren't disbanding any time soon.

#4

Kaeru

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:candle:

wait wrong article

#5

KuroiRyuu9625

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Finally some concrete information to look at instead of being forced to grasp at air. I also wanted to note GosuGamer's article:
http://www.gosugamers.net/overwatch/news/44946-potential-conflict-of-interest-revealed-in-owl-franchise-list

I'm hoping it's not as big of a deal as it seems and that it will be properly regulated.

Otherwise I'm also curious to see what the top tier 1 and two teams like Rogue, nV and even C9 will do since they don't seem to be in the mix just yet.

#7

BenTylerOW

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LA KariV PogChamp

#8

poi98

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Misfits immortals and nrg confirmed so?

#9

muerte

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Blizzard killing EU Overwatch ResidentSleeper

How about letting tournament organizers to host and organize real events, with the support of Blizzard instead of fucking up every small organization and tournament. I'm not really a professional when it comes to building up well functioning e-sports scene, but forcing huge league is just dumb, instead of having multiple tiers and organizations having a possibility to really compete, they are going with couple big organizations to fight for one big title, i highly doubt it's the best way to go.

#10

ELektrikBill

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no Texas team feelsbadman

#45

moon2pharah

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Houston's too busy destroying every team in the MLB right now.

#14

poi98

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Also i think that after first season blizzard will decrease prices for the spot.... the first teams will be happy anyway cause they will have more fans ( they will have time to create a good fanbase) and they will take more money in merchandising so all will be happy with that...but at least for the first season Blizzard is obly to has high prices for the spot

#15

CommanderX

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Live http://overwatch.majorleaguegaming.com/

#16

Hitchcock

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Correct me if I'm wrong here: So will Envyus, Rogue, Lunatic Hai, Kongdoo Panthera, LW Blue etc. all not compete in this league?
If so then this could be the biggest flop in esports ever. Looks like a huge financial bubble to me and the symbol of it gonna be NRG who are not even Tier 4 anymore but nevertheless buy a slot in an artifcially constructed money league. I sincerely hope I'm not getting this right..

#17

tamagao

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top teams like envy will almost certainly be in the league, just because the org envyus doesn't have a spot doesn't mean a sports team owner won't buy the roster from them or even hire the org to manage the team for them
i don't know for sure about the top korean teams, i imagine seoul will be one of those teams, but others would depend on the willingness of the players to live and play overseas

#18

Hitchcock

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I get what you're saying but is it really likely that they will buy rosters off the traditional esports orgs to form their team? They might also take the NRG approach of buying big streamers who have no team chemistry whatsoever but bring in the sponsors.. Sounds like Doom & Gloom but I'm really worried that this will flop hard. (The Like/Dislike ratio on the youtube announcement also indicates that I'm not the only one having mixed feelings about this)

#19

tamagao

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it's very possible they grab up big names and streamers rather than the best players and best teams, but keep in mind they come from the sports world where success is the best way to bring in money, otherwise tim tebow would still be in the NFL
also it should be noted that they will have more teams than 7 even before the first season, and who knows what rogue, envy, eunited, laser kittenz, and even the korean teams are working on behind the scenes to be able to get the money to afford an OWL spot
i don't think you're wrong to be worried, though, it is pretty frightening that an org whose team can't even keep a consistent roster has already secured a spot

#20

fellah

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yay overwatch get their league, now they ar eonly loosing the community with these ridicolous updates with doomfist and shit wauw blizzard seems to surprise me every fucking time how dumb they are

#21

BigBad01

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Wait, we don't like Doomfist now? When did this happen?

#22

Shun

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I will eat Sideshow's shed if there isn't an EU-based franchise. They just haven't locked it down yet.

#24

Diplomatt

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I will be upset if we don't have Manchester eUnited

#25

LaurenceR

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I'm not a football fan (soccer for you Americans) but I definitely get behind that. As eUnited is half Brits it's a possibility tbh

#26

robokun87

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My biggest concern is the viewers, even people that play OW barely even watch the best matches and the most you see is 20k from all over the world, how do they expect people who probably don't even know about OW to turn up and watch a team from Sweden in Miami? how many sports fans in Miami will know who Misfits are? why would Americans turn up at a random city to watch 6 Koreans play? shit makes no sense to me really.

We've had some incredible matches in APEX and even online events yet viewers still stayed away, not sure why people think OWL will suddenly bring in hundreds of thousands especially when you have a team like NRG who last I checked are not even a team, don't they have 4 players and 1 who would rather earn money streaming than be one of the top players? NRG are a shit show and it's a disgrace they even have a spot.

Hollywood Hammers moved from Europe and I don't think they've won a match yet, will the Hollywood sports fans come to watch them live giving how poorly they are and how it's not a "superstar" team like C9 or EnvyUs? this entire franchise team thing is a giant cluster fuck but let's see how it pans out.

#29

KuroiRyuu9625

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That's a concern I have as well. I'm totally making assumptions here but I think Blizz will, hopefully, get on the promotion train a bit harder.

I feel like the game needs more visibility to get the viewers it needs so that it's not just limited to us OW nerds. Your example for APEX is a good one though the matches for that tournament were usually at 6:00 and 8:00 am eastern time so I think that may have been the biggest deterrent.

Also note that the teams you named are not in the league at this time, but if they were and had the money for it they could just field a new squad. I don't think that's realistic for some orgs but if the league will not be centered around players, it will more than likely be centered around the teams they play for.

The success of the league may very well come down to how well Blizz and all those associated can present it to the masses to generate sustainable interest.

I'm no eSport or marketing expert so take this with a grain of salt but if they can manage to do that and do it well I think this league has a solid chance.

#27

poi98

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The most important problem who stop investement right now is related at the low viewership that OW has right now....we really need to try to push up the views for OWWC. If we do that investors will se the power of blizzard tournament and decide to put money on the OWL. We really need to watch as much OWWC as we can so the investitors will see the interest.

#28

Kaeru

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The biggest concern is the viewership for me too. I have faith in Blizzard, I think they can make this whole thing work, but they need to advertise the sh*t out of OWL if they want to get viewers. Make every single match appear in the Blizzard App, even in the game. Post it on Twitter, post it on every single social media site. I'm seriously interested about how many people will watch World Cup in the first place. If I remember correctly last year the World Cup had a pretty decent viewership(not sure how big tho, I tried searching for it, but I couldn't find anything). So, pls Blizzard support the League.

EDIT: I found the viewerships for last WC. It seems like the peak viewers on Twitch were above 230k. IIRC Blizzard advertised the WC pretty well, so most likely this is the key

#30

Pixelfish

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robokun87 back at it again with the SwiftRage BabyRage

#31

Sideshow

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When you consider the combined might of all of the marketing arms of these ridiculously large companies or people involved, it'd be a travesty if the publicity was an issue. I think that will convert into viewership if the teams are good enough and they should be.

It seems likely that Seoul will use L-H, with their sister team replacing the current roster in APEX, Shanghai will field a relatively competitive Chinese team, Immortals have a solid base to work from with a genuinely strong team, and NRG and Misfits both have time to replace people as necessary to form a top team worthy of being in there. The two newcomers in Kraft and Wilpon will have the resources to either buy Rogue/EnVyUs (or possibly another Korean team but seems unlikely), or form their own idea of a superteam from Korean/Western pieces. That's before any other owners sign up as well with their opportunities to bring in good teams.

Anybody who fields a shit team to OWL will get roasted. Even though the level of competition is unlikely to match that of APEX in the past three seasons, where the best region played the best few foreign teams, it's gonna be global, competitive, and well publicised. It's also not gonna have any other more competitive league in the world other than APEX, which has stopped taking foreign teams so loses that charm.

Why would viewers not watch? It'll be promoted through in-game items, client announcements, social media everywhere, hopefully in the game itself (though not announced at all yet). I feel more confident now than I did before this announcement. Not saying they'll get hundreds of thousands for every match but APEX finals got something like 150k last season and this will be pushed harder with teams more people in the West care about.

As for your questions to locality robokun, your issues actually make no sense! The games are all happening in LA for the first season, so there's no problem with lack of attendance at local venues. When those are implemented, it will be Overwatch fans/players turning up to watch, same as any other esport - they are just ALSO likely to capture some small chunk of the local wider esports or gaming fanbase.

Would people in LA turn out to see Immortals despite their three Korean players? Fuck yeah of course they would! People aren't put off by watching others of different nationalities, and if they were then American CS:GO major tournaments (with majority European/Brazilian teams and players making finals) would flop in attendance. They're fans of the game, the competition, even the teams and players without that local connection. The locality of it only adds something to those who would otherwise be uninterested. To a 'hardcore' fan it doesn't add much but it crucially takes nothing away.

#43

wentaway

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Sideshow, why should an European/Russian stay up late into the night to watch a western coast match?

The good of ESPORTS is that's not bound (well not too much) to time zones, you'll sooner or later have nice tournaments in your timezone, being forced to only have 2 major events, but not like this.

I'm not just sad that Blizzard crippled the EU scene because I play in EU timezone, but also 'cause being me a worker staying online at 3-4 AM to watch an intresting match... well doesn''t cut.

I think they are gambling way too high on OW being able to work like a traditional sport (NA sport at it), but the other issue is, where are the feeder leagues? Each major sport scene and major league is supported by less competitive but more pervasive (on the territory) leagues, and I don't see them here, yet.

#44

DrElementary

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There are two leagues below OWL that work as the "minor leagues", and each team can run its own tournaments to further expand the nets.

Alongside this, each team will receive licenses to run five local events a year to compliment the Open Division and Contenders

#54

Antitype

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The time zone thing is my personal hype killer. If they go with primetime West Coast, I'll never be able to watch a single match live, even during the weekend. I'll always be sleeping around 4-6am CE(S)T... I don't mind getting some results spoiled, but if it's all the time.. that sucks. Now they might consider other time zones and schedule accordingly so that more people around the world can watch events live, but if they want to sell as many tickets as possible, then primetime is what makes the most sense.

#55

HMS-Dragonfly

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Dude, I have been staying up late to watch Premier League and Champions League for more than 10 years.

It has been that way for people in SEA and East Asia since forever, yet Premier League and Champions League are still big things for us over here. As long as they play in the afternoon on weekend, you guys in Western Europe will manage.

#59

wentaway

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Don't you also have thou your local championships? Meaning that if you just want to relax watching a football match you are not forced to do it at 3-4-5AM.

I love basket, so I used to stay up to watch live some NBA matches, then I simply started not to bear it anymore, but lucky me, although at a completely different level and way less spectacular in Italy we have our own leagues of baskets (and not just 1), so when I want my basket fix I can go either to watch a match in person, or simply watch it online/on TV.

How many OW tournaments have been held in EU since the announcement of OWL? Do you think that's gonna change? I hope it will, but highlly doubt it.

#32

Pixelfish

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I agree with Sideshow PogChamp

#33

BigBad

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If this thread gets to two pages, OWL is guaranteed to be a success! PogChamp

More seriously, I live about 1 hour from New York City. I don't care what team the NY owner gets, you can be damn sure that I'll be attending some of those live events, once they start!

#34

tamagao

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i will definitely be doing the same if charlotte gets one
i am praying one of our local sports franchises invests in envy to keep tge roster in the city

#57

BigBad

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We did it bois! OWL is guaranteed success now!

#35

CamRa

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https://twitter.com/AlicusOfficial/status/885195190864158721

monkaS

#36

HMS-Dragonfly

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Miami Misfits. The name sounds really amazing.
LA Immortals. Sounds good as well.
San Francisco NRG. They might want to rename the team Kappa. The name sucks.

I wonder if Noah Winston actually saw that coming from years ago when he founded Immortals. If it's the case, dude's a legend.

#38

Hater

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well lets look at some of the other highly likely names,

Los Vegas Rogue
Charlotte Envyus
London eUnited (i mean thats my guess they do have like the most uk player on a team)
Taiei Flash Wolves
Hollywood Hammers (yeah this one is pretty much confirmed to be happening at some point)

and many other I just want to see where lazer kittens ends up

#39

poi98

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Alicus has already bought a spot for 500000€......Blizzard haven't finished to pay him yet!!

#46

KuroiRyuu9625

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I think it's supposed to be pronounced Energy, so like..San Francisco Energy, not great but much better than San Francisco NRG right?

#37

CookieBeast

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Hope they have a match in NY soon

#40

Rimaz

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Does this mean only 7 teams will be competing in the OW league? That's kinda sad.

#41

poi98

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i think there will be more investitors if the OWWC 2017 makes good viewerships

#42

Kaeru

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No. They said that these are just the founding members. There was an interview too where they said that more teams will be coming IIRC.

#47

robokun87

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"As for your questions to locality robokun, your issues actually make no sense! The games are all happening in LA for the first season, so there's no problem with lack of attendance at local venues. When those are implemented, it will be Overwatch fans/players turning up to watch, same as any other esport - they are just ALSO likely to capture some small chunk of the local wider esports or gaming fanbase."

In theory that works but considering we struggle to get 20k viewers for a big online tournament how are you so sure 6k will turn up in person when we get 20k from all over the world watching the best teams, because Blizzard will market it? will thousands of people sitting in LA suddenly think shit, Blizzard pumped out some advertising regarding OW I better go down in person and see it for myself! maybe but it isn't a guarantee.

Then next year what you got, people in Miami turning up in person to watch Misfits, a full Swedish team? dunno man doesn't quite add up to me but who knows, think the main problem OW has is how hard it is to watch for a casual so only the hardcore OW fans/players will turn up just like they do on streams, you show OW to someone new and it's an absolute cluster fuck that will blow their mind, how can Blizzard possibly do enough to convince people it's not, time will tell.

CS:GO is probably the second most popular e-sports title in the world or maybe third who knows and even then some venues are half empty and considering OW has never had a LAN with a crowd and we get 20k people online streams it's absolute madness to expect massive viewers and thousands turning up at LAN.

#49

tamagao

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why do you keep bringing up that misfits is swedish? you're overestimating how much people care about nationality, americans still cheer for rogue and envy, and barcelona fans still buy messi jerseys and go to the games even though he's from argentina

#50

robokun87

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Rogue are probably 3rd best team in the world and moved to US some months ago and have already been claimed as NA, Misfits are a full Swedish team living in Europe who are actually pretty shit, you try telling me who people in Miami would rather see and do I care Misfits are Swedish? no why would I but I still don't see why a bunch of people will turn up to watch them live when a they are not NA and b they are not even that good but hey, I'll gladly be wrong.

That logic about Messi is the most retarded pile of dog shit I've ever read, Barcelona fans buy a Messi jersey because he's the biggest legend in the clubs history, you stop a bunch of people in the streets of Miami and ask them who Misfits are.

I don't doubt you Pixelfish, you just completely shoot down everything I say because I'm a pessimist and you're a complete optimist and you are clearly right here not me, how can you sit there and say people not paying attention is false based on nothing, as I said before how can 20k people who are actually OW fans turn in to watch the biggest online tournaments yet you suddenly expect 5 times that figure because Blizzard are advertising? come on man, you shoot me down for talking shit every chance you get yet being over optimistic based on your hopes rather than fact is just dumb.

No point talking shite every day, I've seen more pessimism regarding OWL than optimism so it ain't just me, let's see how it plays out in the future then we can come back here and see who was wrong.

#52

KuroiRyuu9625

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This isn't about being right or wrong, it's a discussion. If you're not willing to have a civilized debate you've come to the wrong website. Arguing with you is pointless if your responses are going to keep resembling what you just spat out just there.

Learn to debate and have some respect.

#51

KuroiRyuu9625

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As much as I understand that you want people to not overhype this in a blindly optimistic way you also need to consider that you may be overly pessimistic in your approach here.

We're trying to have a conversation about the effects of the OWL, good and bad, but there's not much value in your arguments if all they bring is subjective notions of nationality and the lack of LANs being the end all be all of this League's failure.

Try and bring more objective observations to back up your comments and do attempt to concede when the counter argument has solid facts behind it.

That's how you properly debate without sounding completely biased and possibly unwilling to understand the other side, imo.

#56

HMS-Dragonfly

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People don't care that much about where the players come from. Take a look at your own Premier League. Like, seriously, how many players in Chelsea (London-based football club) are even from England? And I am pretty sure no one there comes from London.

#48

Pixelfish

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It's not a clusterfuck. I don't know why you make the point about Misfits being all Swedish- does that bother you in some way? Or do you think it will bother people who want to watch the team? If there's an eSports event taking place in Miami and some people want to see it, they're not thinking about what nationality the players are.

Your other argument about OW has never had a LAN with a crowd is completely false; Atlantic Showdown, OW Open, the World Cup, MLG Vegas, Dreamhack Winter, Winter Premiere, IEM Gyeonggi, and APEX have all had crowds. The APEX season 2 finals was a packed arena. We may not be filling up stadiums every day, but we're still getting much more sizable crowds that you imagine, and with the size of the OWL, there will be plenty of people showing up in person and online. Tickets for the World Cup group stages are already sold out.

If you're thinking that no one in the mainstream will pay attention, this is also false. An ad for overwatch league aired on ABC, a prime time cable network, last night. While everyone won't rush to the stadium right away, it at least captures the interest of some people, who then tell their friends, and word gets spread. OWL isn't going to be some quiet little event. Blizzard is going to advertise the shit out of it and it will most likely be very successful.

And if you're doubting me about that ad (which you seem to do about everything), here it is: https://streamable.com/4z01f

#53

Pixelfish

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I shoot down everything you say because you never have anything to back it up, you just consistently spew dumb, pessimistic opinions that have almost zero context. People haven't been paying attention to Overwatch as an esport because it's in it's first year and there hasn't been enough time yet. Please let OWL at least get off the ground before you start making blind assumptions about the audience. People also could not care less about player's nationalities. If it bothers you (which it seems to), then you may have some sort of weird racism towards Europeans, OR you're assuming the majority of people are thinking in the exact same way as you.
I do expect 5 times that figure, not just because Blizzard is advertising, but because how big OWL is in terms of scope and what is actually brings to the table, and how it revolutionizes esports and pushes it into the mainstream. This is what is going to interest people.
I do realize that I shut you down a lot, but that's because all of your comments are overly-pessimistic (which I know a lot of other people here agree on). I'm optimistic yes, but I'm not basing it on hope, but rather smart predictions that actually makes tad of sense, unlike the majority of your comments. I look forward to coming back here in the future and proving you wrong about OWL.
And you should listen to what KuroiRyuu is saying; if this many people are consistently shutting you down, maybe you should think about for once conceding and thinking about what we're saying. If that's not an option for you, then my question is: if you're hating on Overwatch so much and have zero hope for it whatsoever... why you are on this website then?

#58

pogtromp

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all this whining about EU being dead is so ResidentSleeper

Blizzard confirmed like a gazillion times that they gonna run their initial tests NA. And when things get somewhat stable they gonna expand. Like every other company does too with their business.

#60

ideekae

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I just remembered, wasn't NRG partnered with DC? No idea how that's gonna work.