ESPN reports Atlanta on list of expansion franchises

#1

DixR

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Another USA team....yay

#2

robokun87

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Just what the league needed, but look on the bright side most of the players won't be American :P

I guess it's fair we get 1 European slot for every 10 NA/Asia slots eh.

#4

Hi

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hey, its shitty I know, but at least you have paris to root for now! would be hilarious if it was an all korean team like london tho. It could definitely be an all french roster though so you never know.

#10

wentaway

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Eh More NA teams than NA players, let's hope Atlanta could change that... I doubt it but eh.

#12

robokun87

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I genuinely hope they can put together a team of the best NA players possible, they can't possibly do any worse than Shanghai can they and why wouldn't Americans love the fact they can cheer on a complete American OWL side?

Obviously it won't happen because of money but still, would be cool.

#14

wentaway

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Of course they are in for the money, so the wins, and to win you need obviously the strongest players, which at the moment means mainly Koreans, and if nothing changes will be Koreans forever.

Follows a wall of imo of course

They should have structured Contenders better in 2017, forcing NA teams to only have NA players, EU and KO the same.

Launching OWL only after a serious season of Contenders, and put in place some sort of limits to foreign (not just Koreans) players, let's say being forced to field at least 2-3 NA players in each match.

Would the quality have been lower? Yes, but you would have had some sort of a scene, and let's not joke about it, people would have watched it anyway.

Come year 2, with new teams, you'd have had more Koreans anyway, and so on and so forth, but eh what's done is done, the season was nice, the finals poggers, but stil...

#15

Involv3r

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Most OWL teams have a certain diversity in terms of where their players come from. I see what you mean by locking regions in Contenders but I doubt it's a viable solution moving forward.

Contenders, which in time will be the main resource for OWL scouting staff (for players and on air talent alike), needs serious care as to player contracts, LAN experience, infrastructure, support staffing and way better exposure and advertisement. League is the fetus with Contenders being the umbilical cord, in a metaphoric way.
The amount of unsponsored teams in Contenders is just ridiculous.

#16

wentaway

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Yep totally agree on the part about providing more support to Contenders.

They should do it equally for all the regions (except Korea that's on another level by itself) thou, 'cause if they start investing only in the NA Contenders what you'll have is another version of the OWL.

All the best non-OWL players will be picked up by these teams, which means more Koreans and Europeans, not a better NA scene (the same goes for all scense of course).

#17

Hi

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Yeah I mean the NA contenders scene isn't really that fair to NA players, I checked once and it was like out of 84 players, 53 of them are NA. The other 31 are Eu or Korean. And thats with a lot of NA subs that aren't actually playing. In korea its all Korean players. In EU its all european players except like one or two. In China its all chinese players except one fully korean team. In AU its all players from Australia and NZ, except one NA player. In the pacific region however I think all of group a are fully korean teams. So yeah its fair to koreans who are getting these spots because of how talented and smart their play is. But at the same time it eliminates a lot of opportunity for other players from these regions who would have a chance to prove themselves but aren't getting it. And I don't think its healthy for the Korean players who are essentially getting worse, because their competition isn't as good. I don't know what the answer is though. I mean maybe allow Korean contenders more teams? I think the main reason that NA has so many foreign players is because its almost all academy teams.

#18

Involv3r

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I don't know if we can talk about fairness to NA players. First and foremost, teams want a return on their investment, considering how dry the T2 scene has been for a long time, and they're gonna pick the best options they can put their hands on.

From where I'm standing, and I'm trying to be as objective as one could be, the Korean and European scenes, in that order, offer the largest number of top tier players as of now. Also we don't know that the NA players you're mentioning aren't getting opportunities to showcase themselves. From an outsider point of view, it looks like KR and EU players just offer what teams need (only 6 NA players fielded during the entire playoffs).

There also are a bunch of young NA talent on the rise so maybe in the next couple of years the number representing the region in OWL will balance out with the other 2 main ones.

#20

Hi

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I mean listen its not like these korean players are only better than NA players. They're better than the players in any of the other regions as well. Its not specifically because they are better NA players. But you don't see nearly as many in other regions. Its because NA has 8 out of 9 of the total academy teams in it (Kind of fucked us there didn't you blizzard by allowing so many teams to be "NA" teams). And if they have these top tier korean players on their academy teams, 1 like you said their chances at a return are higher, and 2 they will get opportunity before anyone else to put these players on their owl teams. And 6 NA player in the playoffs? There were only 8 eu Players that is not a big difference. Not only that, but if the outlaws had nearly as easy a regular season as philly there would be many more NA players than Eu. So I might be biased here but I think you are a little bias as well.

#21

Involv3r

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How can you possibly say that Blizzard fucked NA by allowing that many Academy teams to compete in it ? Would you rather have unsponsored teams replace them ? Because that's what's going on in EU (7/12 teams).
Considering how many orgs left Overwatch just because Blizzard didn't take care of the T2 scene, that would be selfish if we're thinking about the players/coaches/staff in general.

And Korean players fill those spots rather than Western players because they are guaranteed a good pay day and simply offer more. And I'm not talking about raw mechanical skill here. They have more LAN experience, most if not all have worked in a structured org prior, among other things.

'If the outlaws had nearly as easy a regular season as philly' ???
And that's a very big if, I could also argue that if Mayhem made it through there would have been even more of a gap between the 2 regions, but that doesn't get us anywhere does it ?

Finally, there are 13 EU (15%), 18 KR (20%) and 56 NA players in Contenders S2, I don't understand what's the big deal. 2 thirds of it is populated by local talent.
I feel like I'm being as objective as I can, I don't see what I would be biased towards here.

continue thread →

#19

Involv3r

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The Korean scene might not need as much help as the others but I believe it does still. Esports being what it is in SK culture helps make it a viable career choice. It's unfortunately not the same in EU for example which heavily lacks in investment and support (both social and financial).

What do you think makes KR and EU players so much more prevalent in the professional sphere as opposed to NA players ? That's the real question for me.

#23

wentaway

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I honestly think it's a matter of culture, when we speak of EU we consider all countries alltogether...

Italy which has more population then all the nordic nations together (50-60mills), and yet barely manages to field 1 tier 2-3 team, why is that? Because videogames as a whole are still considered not an actual field of work, trust me I work with videogames and even now that I'm 40 people keep reacting like "really you work with videogames?!?! Haha that must be so cool, basically playing, not even a real job!".

On the other hand you have Sweden, Norway, Finnland and Denmark, which pump out esport players like if it rains

I have some NA friends and have been in the States and Canada a couple of times (holidays and work), but I get the impression that the society still doesn't really consider gaming like an "actual" profession, unlike they do for classic sports.

#3

Raisin

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Blizzard is an American company, trying to follow the model of leagues like the NFL and NBA. It's honestly more surprising that there are teams outside of the US at all, especially considering that eventually teams are going to have to fly all over the planet for away games. There's a reason all of the major sports leagues only have teams on one continent. Also, America is where the money is.

#11

robokun87

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The money is in America but it only gets brought in from the Asians and Europeans, if you made an OWL league consisting entirely of NA teams and players then did the same for EU and Asia I'm 100% certain the two latter leagues would be much better and more popular. My point is, know where the money comes from but don't shit on the people that bring that money in, that's to Blizzard.

That makes sense trying to follow NFL if that's what they are trying to do but it's not, Blizzard are trying to make a worldwide NFL which is always the main thing I've never seen working, imagine travelling from London to Australia or from Australia to the farthest place in NA for one match?

If they just made it like an NFL where it exclusively happened in NA but with worldwide brands and players then sure it will work but all this travelling will fuck these players up.

#13

Elendil_OW

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Scheduling matches so that the visiting teams get more priority for matches, and having them stay in a guest facility within the home team's area would probably solve that, but it'll be tough for the visiting teams eitherway due to the amount of preparation they need to do for multiple matches in the same week.

Yeah I have no idea how they're going to handle this logistics-wise.

#26

wentaway

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Or again, this might be a shocker, why don't they make different leagues? With 12 teams is difficult of course, but with more?

Make an NA OWL, an EU OWL, an Asian OWL, etc... Relatively shorter seasons, and then the top 3-4 (depending of how many regions they have) fly over to LA and play somme longer playoffs.

Or even better, they change region for the playoffs year by year.

Blizzard wants a global esport, NFL, NBA, NHL are not really global, yes there are some (a lot in some cases) non NA players, and sure they are watched also by people outside of NA, but for example, there is more people in Italy watching Italian basket than NBA and the reasons are multiple, despite being obviously a vastly inferior experience: Time zone, easy to go and watch live, but most of all people can cheer for the players and teams of their city.

#5

Tiuska

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What do you think the team name will be? I'm guessing Atlanta Knobbed Whelks (Official state shell) ;)

#6

Hi

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Yes and I'm sure someday when helsinki gets a team they'll be the Helsinki Whooping Swans, Or the Helsinki Valley Lilies.

#9

tamagao

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Huge Knobbed Whelks fan btw

#25

End3rWiggn

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Atlanta Metal Pothole Covers

#7

Centurion

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Aren’t Paris and Guangzhou (China) also confirmed?

#8

verb

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not confirmed, but reported by a very reliable source.

#24

Babouh

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The #1 consultant in esports said there's an agreement but it's not signed yet. Paris Musketeers hype ! (not biased)