Overwatch League Popularity

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Jan 29, 2019 The Overwatch League or OWL is a professional esports league for the popular video game Overwatch. The league consists of 12 founding teams, and 8 expansion teams to form a league of 20 teams. Started in 2016, the OWL is one of esports first professional leagues to follow traditional professional sports by setting the teams home base in the. Jan 05, 2018 Will the Overwatch League be a staple within the eSports landscape of 2018 and beyond? In many regards, the foundation looks promising: There is a financial and structural strong publisher, there is a huge player pool, there are franchised teams representing cities and there are entities providing cash, knowledge and experience.

Overwatch© Provided by Dot Esports

Fifteen days. That’s how long the Overwatch esports community sat in silence, awaiting news about the Los Angeles Valiant’s unclear future.

On Jan. 14, reporter Aaron “Halo” Spake tweeted that Immortals Gaming Club had sold the Valiant—once one of the Overwatch League’s most popular teams—to an unnamed Chinese organization and that it’d release its roster. The Valiant quickly responded, denying the allegation of sale in one tweet, but confirming a move to the Asia-Pacific region in another.

The reaction of the community was fierce.

Image manipulations of the Valiant logo placed on the flag of China appeared on Twitter and Reddit. Commentators accused the Valiant of lying, while others questioned Halo, whose tweets and reports have at times been premature, and his credibility. And after posting the two tweets, the Valiant Twitter account went silent for 15 days.

The Valiant’s hasty response—a swift denial with very little substance in its longer statement—left the community with more questions than answers.

Halo’s report wasn’t entirely correct, but Immortals were not all that forthcoming either. Here’s what actually happened, according to sources that spoke to Dot Esports: Over the Christmas-New Year’s holiday period, the organization signed a one-year operating agreement with LinGan e-Sports. LinGan will not acquire any shares in the Valiant, nor have the option to buy the franchise at a later date, Immortals CEO Ari Segal told Dot Esports.

The Valiant ownership won’t change hands, but the end result was the same: the Valiant broke up their roster just over two months after signing them—and they found out through the tweet of a reporter.

The suggestion to move to China came from the Overwatch League itself, sources familiar with that discussion told Dot Esports. Immortals, who have been looking to exit Overwatch League for the past few months in some capacity, saw an opportunity to keep the asset while potentially increasing its brand potential in Overwatch’s most popular market, according to sources. Segal declined to comment specifically on a potential sale.

The players were told by the organization the night of Halo’s tweet that Immortals would disband the roster, but the public did not hear the news from the Valiant until Jan. 29.

“And here I was thinking the color change would be the worst decision this organization ever made,” former Overwatch League host Malik Forte said in a tweet.

With some of the players heartbroken and unclear about what career options lay ahead, they’ve had to walk on eggshells.

In their exit agreements, they signed both non-disparagement and non-disclosure clauses with Immortals. If the players made as much as passive aggressive comments on social media, it’d violate those contracts. Penalty for breaching said agreements would be a forced return of their severance, which equals an additional month of pay for most of the players.

A change in organizational structure wasn’t totally unexpected. In negotiating with the Valiant in the fall, one management official told a player—who spoke to Dot Esports on the condition of anonymity—that there was a possibility of a change of ownership.

He thought the process would go more like the Houston Outlaws, who were acquired from Immortals by Beasley Media in 2019 and retained the bulk of their players and staff during the transition. Immortals staff did not mention a possibility that would end the players’ newly-signed contracts in less than three months.

“As an organization, we’ve always said we’ll continue to be active in [mergers and acquisitions] and we’ll be opportunistic in exploring whatever is out there to improve our business,” Segal said. “That said, there was no sale process of any kind [when we signed the players]. We didn’t retain an adviser, we weren’t in conversations with counterparties. So any idea that there was an overhanging divestiture is untrue.”

© Provided by Dot Esports Photo via Robert Paul / Blizzard Entertainment

Several weeks after the players signed on in late October and early November, the Overwatch League proposed to a number of teams—including the Valiant—to move to China temporarily. One team, the London Spitfire, was leaving the Asia-Pacific region, while the Philadelphia Fusion were going east. That left the Overwatch League with seven teams in the region again, which would impact scheduling as it did in the 2020 season.

When the Valiant decided to move to China following that suggestion in late November, both their and the league’s counsel concluded that obtaining visas for their players to move to China was impossible. Due to COVID-19, approved entry to China has been significantly delayed, taking anywhere from six to eight months on average to obtain those visas.

“When the Valiant communicated a desire to play from Asia in 2021, we immediately highlighted the logistical issues they would need to navigate, including the time it would likely take to secure visas,” an Overwatch League spokesperson told Dot Esports. “Additionally, we highlighted the need for them to put strong plans in place to support the players on their current roster, if they were going to pursue such a move at such a late stage in the year. Ultimately the team decided to go forward with temporary relocation to China for the 2021 season.”

China is the biggest market for the Overwatch League and may be the first country to allow the league to return to live events, several sources said. The Chinese government actively worked with Riot Games to put on the 2020 League of Legends World Championship, one of the few offline events in all of esports last year.

Live events are a key part of the business model that Activision Blizzard sold to its high-profile investors. Coronavirus constraints have been hard for the league, which has drawn criticism extensively for years for the large cost of buying into the league, which was $20 million to buy a franchise in season one and $35 to $60 million for season two.

Many of the Valiant’s recent choices sting especially hard considering the brand’s past reputation as the league’s most relatable, fan-focused team.

Throughout the first two seasons of the Overwatch League, the Los Angeles Valiant built a successful, symbiotic relationship with local fans who packed the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California. As the brand hosted local watch parties and invested in important causes, like the Overwatch League’s first LGBTQ partnership, fans returned that care with ravenous, undying loyalty.

Whether the team was flying high during a 2018 stage championship or crashing during a 0-7 stage in 2019, fans rallied behind the brand. Meaningful fan engagement and outreach from charismatic players, like Indy “SPACE” Halpern and Scott “Custa” Kennedy, kept the green and gold flying in the Blizzard Arena. Regular updates from staff members and well-produced content that showcased player personalities solidified the Valiant as a team that catered directly to the Overwatch League audience.

As the 2019 season ended, so did that reputation. Most of the team’s biggest stars retired or headed to greener pastures due to the apparent bare-bones budget for the 2020 season. After two beloved coaches were dropped due to “economic struggles” and head coach Packing10 split his coaching time with Immortals’ VALORANT team, most fans had lost trust in the organization.

While the Valiant’s roster of talented rookies did better than expected during last year’s COVID chaos, that performance didn’t make up for the sudden dropoff in transparency, content, and engagement. Even before the move to China was announced, fans were mourning the glory years of Los Angeles Valiant hype. Now, that grief is palpable.

The post How the Overwatch League pushed for the LA Valiant to move to China—and what comes next appeared first on Dot Esports.

Will the Overwatch League be a staple within the eSports landscape of 2018 and beyond? In many regards, the foundation looks promising: There is a financial and structural strong publisher, there is a huge player pool, there are franchised teams representing cities and there are entities providing cash, knowledge and experience. Nevertheless the inagrual season of the league – which will start next week – has to live up to its expectations, especially when it comes to fan engagement and media reach.

Therefore we take a look at the current social media followers of the Overwatch League franchises.

League Setup

Before we take a look at the numbers, let’s just have a short overview about what we are talking here:

  • Overwatch is a team-based first person shooter currently played by more than 35 million players
  • The Overwatch League is a sports ecosystem for professional Overwatch competition
  • The league is the first major global professional eSports league with twelve city-based teams
  • The teams are owned by renowned sports and eSports entities
  • The buy-in price for each franchise slot reportedly was twenty million US dollars

Social Media Strategy

When it comes to social media the strategy of league host Blizzard Entertainment focuses on the most popular social networking sites of the world: Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. All these social media platforms also enjoy great popularity among eSports enthusiasts so the choice seems reasonable. In fact, some professional eSports players have millions of fans on social media.

But how do the participants of the Overwatch League perform on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram?

Let’s take a look:

Youtube: Dallas Fuel dominates the video ranking

Facebook: Seoul Dynasty has the most likes

Twitter: San Francisco Shock tweets to the most fans

Instagram: Dallas Fuel is the king of images

And what about the players?

While a lot of Overwatch League players use Youtube, Facebook or Instagram to get in touch with their fans, the most used social media platform seems to be Twitter. Our research shows that 91 out of the 113 professional Overwatch players have a Twitter account. And some of them show off quite some fanbase, even bigger than the associated franchise!

Most famous professional Overwatch players on Twitter

Overwatch

So what?

What can we take from this?

Although these numbers aren’t impressive at all and a lot of teams lack in followers on multiple social media platforms, Blizzard Entertainment and the franchises of the Overwatch League have done a decent job in creating a basis for a healthy and expandable social media structure.

But: There is a lot of space for improvement considering that …

  • some of the franchises are owned up by renowned eSports teams such as Cloud9, NRG or Optic Gaming which have hundred thousands of eSports fans on social media
  • brands like HP and Intel presumably paid a lot of money to be the main sponsors of the league and most likely expect a certain return on investment via social media reach
  • franchise owners reportedly had to pay twenty million US dollars to join the league and will expect a return on investment as well – at least in the longterm
  • Overwatch is watched more frequently than any other eSports in 18 American states according to a report from EsportsEarnings and Frontier Communications

What do you think?

Do you think the Overwatch League will live up to the expectations or will we see one of the biggest failures in eSports short history? Let us know and join the conversation on reddit, Twitter or Facebook!

Overwatch League Popularity Tier

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