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[Tawpgun]

Lets go Boston!

I think the franchise/location based teams is exactly what eSports needs. I never got fully into any esport team because they were just some random organization. I like watching a couple eSports but having teams be based in locations is an awesome way to get people more invested.

 

[Newtype-001]

They used the average competitive ranking of the 100 best players for each country.
Japan was 12th, but Spain was the 21st.

oh you mean by SR thing that blizzard did.
yh i wouldnt put too much weight into that.
SK is easily the strongest team and theya rnt higher than China which plays in its own servers by themselves.

 

[tbm24]

Lets go Boston!

I think the franchise/location based teams is exactly what eSports needs. I never got fully into any esport team because they were just some random organization. I like watching a couple eSports but having teams be based in locations is an awesome way to get people more invested.

Well, if the NY based team is full of people from other countries I won't be terribly motivated to follow.

 

[Twookie]

I thought League of Legends is also franchising now.
P sure thats the way esports is headed

ugh I hope not, I don't really like franchising. (I know it's good for teamowners and potentially players but I dislike the competive aspect of it)
LOL is franchising in NA and Chinese regions only atm I believe.

This whole thing is set up to fail.

First, the entire first season is going to take place in LA. All regular season matches in one US city. So the whole 'represent your city' thing is wasted. Hard to root or care for a home town team when they never play in your town let alone continent.

Second, after the first season, they'll be hosting and playing in the team's cities. These will likely be weekly matches. Have fun flying players across the world (14+ hour flights) with jet lag and interfering with scrimmage and practice. NFL players bitch about playing in the UK once a year. Imagine doing it week in-week out.

Third, no Europe. ok.jpg

I don't see how this can succeed until they get enough teams in each region to play against each other.

pretty much this. Like, as an ethusiast of all things esports I want Blizzard to succeed, but this looks pretty troubling. Will be exciting to see if they succeed.

 

[Busaiku]

Peter gonna be an Overwatch fan in Homecoming 2?

 

[clemenx]

I don't see how this city tied format works for esports but I hope Blizzard doesn't completely bottle it.

 

[kami_sama]

oh you mean by SR thing that blizzard did.
yh i wouldnt put too much weight into that.
SK is easily the strongest team and theya rnt higher than China which plays in its own servers by themselves.

I'm not too concerned really.
USA, Russia, Korea, will be in the top 8. Finland and France also, most likely.
We have a great team so I hope we are also in.

Edit: Is anyone making a thread for the cup? it starts the day after tomorrow.

 

[kayos90]

Maybe I'm not seeing the big picture but I'm not seeing how any of this isn't just simply archaic. Like... League of Legends esports has been around for a while. Does Blizzard live in a bubble or just wants to reinvent the wheel or something??

 

[Faynwulf]

This is one of the most idiotic "esport" concepts I've ever seen. Why the fuck would you think that an american franchising system would work for Overwatch?

Also no EU-Teams. Okay then. I'll give even less fucks about this than I was prepared to before.

 

[kami_sama]

Maybe I'm not seeing the big picture but I'm not seeing how any of this isn't just simply archaic. Like... League of Legends esports has been around for a while. Does Blizzard live in a bubble or just wants to reinvent the wheel or something??

I think that's the best explanation.

 

[Newtype-001]

I'm not too concerned really.
USA, Russia, Korea, will be in the top 8. Finland and France also, most likely.
We have a great team so I hope we are also in.

Edit: Is anyone making a thread for the cup? it starts the day after tomorrow.

Yh im making one. almost finished. just a quick thing

 

[Tawpgun]

Well, if the NY based team is full of people from other countries I won't be terribly motivated to follow.

What are you talking about?

The New England Patriots isn't just made up of players from New England. That's not how professional sports teams work.

 

[Briarios]

Miami-Orlando? Wtf is that about? The distance from Miami to Orlando is greater than the distance from Boston to New York -- that's way too large a market

 

[tbm24]

What are you talking about?

The New England Patriots isn't just made up of players from New England. That's not how professional sports teams work.

I'm aware, that doesn't change what I said. If it's a bunch of euros I'm not goiing to be interested.

 

[Nirolak]

People seem confused about the nature of this announcement.

They're not starting the league with seven teams. They're announcing the first seven teams and finalizing a lot of the revenue sharing details in an effort to get more teams to commit.

 

[patapuf]

Maybe I'm not seeing the big picture but I'm not seeing how any of this isn't just simply archaic. Like... League of Legends esports has been around for a while. Does Blizzard live in a bubble or just wants to reinvent the wheel or something??

Blizzard wants to skip the grassroots process and go right to a few franchises in a league similarily to how a lot of US sports are organised.

Gives them more control and they probably hope that it's more attractive to advertisers and sponsors that way.

People seem confused about the nature of this announcement.

They're not starting the league with seven teams. They're announcing the first seven teams and finalizing a lot of the revenue sharing details in an effort to get more teams to commit.

That makes more sense.

 

[kami_sama]

Yh im making one. almost finished. just a quick thing

Great! Thanks for making it.

 

[molnizzle]

Maybe I'm not seeing the big picture but I'm not seeing how any of this isn't just simply archaic. Like... League of Legends esports has been around for a while. Does Blizzard live in a bubble or just wants to reinvent the wheel or something??

They're pursuing the model of traditional sports because they're after the revenue of traditional sports.

League eSports, big as it might be, doesn't make a ton of money for anyone other than Riot. That model is niche compared to what Blizzard is trying to create.

 

[Newtype-001]

I'm aware, that doesn't change what I said. If it's a bunch of euros I'm not goiing to be interested.

📞

HELLO JEFF THIS IS tbm24 📞

I WATCH NATIONALITIES NOT GAMES📞

BAN EUS PLS📞

 

[kayos90]

People seem confused about the nature of this announcement.

They're not starting the league with seven teams. They're announcing the first seven teams and finalizing a lot of the revenue sharing details in an effort to get more teams to commit.

Honestly speaking this is a terrible announcement. There's no point of announcing that this is the first seven teams when there are gaps. No EU. One SK team. Too much US representation and localized? Why not have the details more solidified before announcing this stuff? Oh, right because the Overwatch League has gone without news for a while so they want to give fans something to look forward to. I get it. This is a terrible announcement just because it misleads things and it makes the entire organization look like it's in disarray. If you need some teams to start with to get buy in, I think there's innate problem and will result in a systemic problem down the line.

 

[tbm24]

📞

HELLO JEFF THIS IS tbm24 📞

I WATCH NATIONALITIES NOT GAMES📞

BAN EUS PLS📞

Okay, would like to see Americans in an American based franchise, surprising.

 

[Newtype-001]

Okay, would like to see Americans in an American based franchise, surprising.

CURIOUS

 

[jett]

Did they really end up paying $20 million? I just don't get this.

 

[Nirolak]

Honestly speaking this is a terrible announcement. There's no point of announcing that this is the first seven teams when there are gaps. No EU. One SK team. Too much US representation and localized? Why not have the details more solidified before announcing this stuff? Oh, right because the Overwatch League has gone without news for a while so they want to give fans something to look forward to. I get it. This is a terrible announcement just because it misleads things and it makes the entire organization look like it's in disarray. If you need some teams to start with to get buy in, I think there's innate problem and will result in a systemic problem down the line.

I think they honestly thought that announcing these teams was the only way forward in an attempt to salvage the league.

This idea isn't really one any of the endemic teams are interested in, and hitting newspapers and etc is the best way to reach professional sports executives in terms of convincing them something is relevant.

You'll notice they lead off with Robert Kraft even though he doesn't have a team associated with him, since that's the type of attention they're looking to attract.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

Robert Kraft? Was screwing up MLS not enough for him?

 

[kayos90]

I think they honestly thought that announcing these teams was the only way forward in an attempt to salvage the league.

This idea isn't really one any of the endemic teams are interested in, and hitting newspapers and etc is the best way to reach professional sports executives in terms of convincing them something is relevant.

100% agree with your first statement. It's been very clear that putting together the Overwatch League has been an ordeal for the past few months and this is their last set of moves to push things forward. It's still a shite idea.

They're pursuing the model of traditional sports because they're after the revenue of traditional sports.

League eSports, big as it might be, doesn't make a ton of money for anyone other than Riot. That model is niche compared to what Blizzard is trying to create.

League's model doesn't make much money for investors and sponsors not because of how it's esports org is outlined but because Riot doesn't like to share money. The fundamental structure of how the League functions with franchising and in a broader scheme how the regions work with other regions for a global competitive scene is soundly structured.

Blizzard wants to skip the grassroots process and go right to a few franchises in a league similarily to how a lot of US sports are organised.

Gives them more control and they probably hope that it's more attractive to advertisers and sponsors that way.

I definitely get that they're trying to follow more of the traditional sports organization route. However, this is an entirely different beast. I don't think Blizzard gets it. Advertisers and sponsors are probably more familiar with the traditional route so I guess there's that....

 

[Tawpgun]

Okay, would like to see Americans in an American based franchise, surprising.

Man, its a good thing you (I assume) don't follow club soccer.

 

[molnizzle]

Okay, would like to see Americans in an American based franchise, surprising.

You should look up the countries of origin of the prominent players on your local sports teams. You might be surprised at what you learn.

 

[patapuf]

They're pursuing the model of traditional sports because they're after the revenue of traditional sports.

League eSports, big as it might be, doesn't make a ton of money for anyone other than Riot. That model is niche compared to what Blizzard is trying to create.

Traditional sports is kind of vague, organising a league around tournaments like in Tennis or Golf, is perfectly feasable for example.

You could go for a Qualification based league with relegation ect.

Going straight for a high buy in from rich team owners ala how the NFL and co. works is not the only possible avenue. I'm sceptical that there's enough money in the market to support that. Though with a revenue split from skins, i guess it's possible.

 

[tbm24]

Man, its a good thing you (I assume) don't follow club soccer.

You assume wrong, and if my club team both domestic and in my Father's country were devoid of players from said nation, I'd be less inclined to watch/root for them. Would I never watch? Probably not, but it plays its part for me. Kind of a weird point since to my knowledge, even the big teams have players from the club's home country.

You should look up the countries of origin of the prominent players on your local sports teams. You might be surprised at what you learn.

Only reason I care to bring it up is because I don't know how this is supposed to work given OW is a 6 person team. Will they have a bench of players and rotate out? Not sure, so it's far more likely you could end up with a team of foreigners than any of my actual local sports teams, plus mine has Thor in it.

 

[kayos90]

You'll notice they lead off with Robert Kraft even though he doesn't have a team associated with him, since that's the type of attention they're looking to attract.

I agree. Sponsors and advertisers and VCs are more familiar with traditional sports and names within that realm. It's clear Blizzard is definitely trying to tap that. While these companies are not familiar with esports and how things function (which is very bad btw), they are familiar with the more traditional stuff and as a result they'll naturally get buy in. Unfortunately, because these companies aren't literate in how esports work so.... the success of this tactic is another story altogether.

 

[jett]

I think this is what this is saying:

Is high-level competitive Overwatch play really popular enough to justify this? It doesn't even look fun to watch for the average person.

 

[kayos90]

Traditional sports is kind of vague, organising a league around tournaments like in Tennis or Golf, is perfectly feasable for example.

You could go for a Qualification based league with relegation ect.

Going straight for a high buy in from rich team owners ala how the NFL and co. works is not the only possible avenue. I'm sceptical that there's enough money in the market to support that. Though with a revenue split from skins, i guess it's possible.

They're trying to play the long game. I guarantee you Blizzard is working off of a 5-10 year ROI and not necessarily a 1-3 year ROI.

 

[ZeroGravity]

Okay, would like to see Americans in an American based franchise, surprising.

If I was a fan of an Overwatch League team, I'd probably want to see the best players possible for my franchise. Which, incidentally, would not be Americans.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

Seriously, Kraft is going to be a nightmare owner for the league. He's already tried an experimental and risky league, and all he's done for MLS is refuse to invest in his team, forced the league ina more conservative direction, and refused to change with the times. I don't know why he bothers.

 

[Newtype-001]

I agree. Sponsors and advertisers and VCs are more familiar with traditional sports and names within that realm. It's clear Blizzard is definitely trying to tap that. While these companies are not familiar with esports and how things function (which is very bad btw), they are familiar with the more traditional stuff and as a result they'll naturally get buy in. Unfortunately, because these companies aren't literate in how esports work so.... the success of this tactic is another story altogether.

i think this is why you see so many traditional sports owners working together with endemic esports orgs. theres more than few esports teams that have backings from traditional orgs now

 

[dimb]

This is a hilariously commercial way to announce your competitive scene. Just rattling off the team owners like anybody knows or cares who these people are....what? Competitive Overwatch is not even in a watchable state so who knows what will happen with this.

 

[tbm24]

If I was a fan of an Overwatch League team, I'd probably want to see the best players possible for my franchise. Which, incidentally, would not be Americans.

I ran into this same problem with SC2 and Dota 2. If the goal is to just watch the best players then there's not much different than what's already taking place with competitive OW.

 

[Nirolak]

Is high-level competitive Overwatch play really popular enough to justify this? It doesn't even look fun to watch for the average person.

So a few years back, Activision noticed that they had zero capability to launch new IPs outside of Blizzard, and bought MLG in an attempt to turn eSports into an NFL like business. Part of this was hiring the former president of the NFL and I think a former CEO of ESPN.

The idea was to do this with Call of Duty, but they realized no one cared about Call of Duty, so they eventually transitioned the idea into Blizzard with Overwatch even though it was supposed to be a new way for the Activision branch to generate revenue.

This is similarly why they started a Film and TV division shortly after focused on Skylanders TV shows and Call of Duty movies, though they reserved the right to move that over to Blizzard's IPs if it failed in the Activision branch.

Eventually they realized both of these were hard, and just bought King to try and solve their issue of Activision being unable to support more than two game franchises, so they could at least grow with two of their branches (Blizzard and King).

But basically, this is the implementation of an idea that was meant for an entirely different product due to creative bankruptcy on the Activision half, so it was kind of just forced on there, and we're seeing the results of this with the astronomically slow uptake of franchisees.

 

[Blam]

This is only going to last one season I'm calling it now.

 

[molnizzle]

Traditional sports is kind of vague, organising a league around tournaments like in Tennis or Golf, is perfectly feasable for example.

You could go for a Qualification based league with relegation ect.

Going straight for a high buy in from rich team owners ala how the NFL and co. works is not the only possible avenue. I'm sceptical that there's enough money in the market to support that. Though with a revenue split from skins, i guess it's possible.

By "traditional sports" I'm referring to the NFL, NBA and MLB.

I too question whether there's enough money there—but I really hope that there is because I think this model is the only way eSports achieves real market penetration. Everybody understands it. My father would absolutely start following the season of a local Dallas team if the highlights were on ESPN, and he's barely held a controller (let alone a gaming mouse). He's never gonna give a shit about some "Bumblefuck eSports" organization and their roster of players with gamertags instead of names. But he'll follow regional teams with rosters of players using their real names. He understands that.

My dad is the market Blizzard is hoping to penetrate here, not NeoGAF posters with Twitch accounts. I'm not convinced that Overwatch is the right game to do it, but I do hope someone does it eventually.

 

[Newtype-001]

This is a hilariously commercial way to announce your competitive scene. Just rattling off the team owners like anybody knows or cares who these people are....what?

It was announced 1year ago.

This is the announcement of teams/owners cause its somewhat of a big deal with how much money you supposedly need for a spot. I think the names are big atleast for americans. I dont really know who kraft is tho.

Im assuming bliz is also using this as advertisement to sponsors like look who we have with us.

 

[Tawpgun]

You assume wrong, and if my club team both domestic and in my Father's country were devoid of players from said nation, I'd be less inclined to watch/root for them. Would I never watch? Probably not, but it plays its part for me. Kind of a weird point since to my knowledge, even the big teams have players from the club's home country.



Only reason I care to bring it up is because I don't know how this is supposed to work given OW is a 6 person team. Will they have a bench of players and rotate out? Not sure, so it's far more likely you could end up with a team of foreigners than any of my actual local sports teams, plus mine has Thor in it.

This is just an odd hang up to me. It's different in American sports because the US is so big and we are dominant in the main popular sports here. Basketball, Football, Baseball, even Hockey.

And even then, there are a ton of foreigners on our baseball teams. Hockey too. In club soccer the team is big so there will of course be English players on an english club, but I'd say the majority are from other countries. Hell the two top players on Barcelona aren't from Spain. I don't even know if any are.

 

[MiamiWesker]

lol Miami got one. I'll be a stereotypical Miami fan and not care until we make the finals.

 

[Newtype-001]

At the end of the day foreign players make a stronger scene especially when the US players as a whole are not dominant in many popular games.

As LG evil Jake put it
If youre scared of foreign players coming over you're admitting failure as a reigon

 

[tbm24]

This is just an odd hang up to me. It's different in American sports because the US is so big and we are dominant in the main popular sports here. Basketball, Football, Baseball, even Hockey.

And even then, there are a ton of foreigners on our baseball teams. Hockey too. In club soccer the team is big so there will of course be English players on an english club, but I'd say the majority are from other countries. Hell the two top players on Barcelona aren't from Spain. I don't even know if any are.

I don't think it's all that different between american sports and otherwise. I grew up watching club soccer with my Grandfather who would flip a couch if Real Madrid had no spaniards in it. When it comes to esports I gravitate first to US teams, who I hope eventually will be on equal footing with the rest. A NY based team with no Americans in it would hurt my enthusiasm for this. Especially if this is supposed to be a franchise in the same vein as full on sports teams, I'd want the aspect of building up local talent to come with it. If it helps, I'm not saying it has to ONLY feature Americans.

 

[Nirolak]

ugh I hope not, I don't really like franchising. (I know it's good for teamowners and potentially players but I dislike the competive aspect of it)
LOL is franchising in NA and Chinese regions only atm I believe.

If your team is bad, you get booted from your franchise spot in League, and there are still slots that are open to anyone.

This by comparison is 100% permanent teams and only permanent teams no matter what.

 

[Blam]

At the end of the day foreign players make a stronger scene especially when the US players as a whole are not dominant in many popular games.

As LG evil Jake put it
If youre scared of foreign players coming over you're admitting failure as a reigon

EU > US

 

[hanspampel]

Did they really end up paying $20 million? I just don't get this.

none of those guys cares about investing $20 million
the potential is huge. they want to hook the young audience into their franchise
traditional sports has some big declines in the young audience

 

[molnizzle]

Especially if this is supposed to be a franchise in the same vein as full on sports teams, I'd want the aspect of building up local talent to come with it. If it helps, I'm not saying it has to ONLY feature Americans.

This hasn't been the case with traditional sports for many, many years.