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The Overwatch League will expand from eight teams to six instead of six.
According to ESPN, the Overwatch League will add two new franchises in Washington, DC and Hangzhou, China, for the second season. They will join the previously announced teams in Atlanta and Guangzhou, as well as teams in Toronto, Paris and Melbourne. Blizzard said he wanted to increase six teams in season two, but dropped those plans after "[receiving] last minute interest of a number of buyers "according to ESPN. The franchise fee for Season 2 expansion teams would be $ 35 to $ 60 million.
The Washington, DC franchise will be owned by a group led by Mark Ein, a real estate and technology investor from Washington, who owns the Washington Kastles World TeamTennis team. Ein is a minority investor in the parent company of Team Liquid aXiomatic, although it is unclear whether Liquid will operate the DC franchise.
The team from Hangzhou, China, will be owned by the Chinese video sharing site Bilibili. This is not the first time that Bilibili works in esports; Bilibili has a League of Legends team that participates in the Tencent League of Legends Pro League as well as the Chinese broadcast rights for this league, the League of Legends World Championship and League of Legends Rift Rivals. The Hangzhou team will be the third team of the China-based Overwatch League, to join the Shanghai Dragons and the Ghangzhou team.
A third Chinese team and a DC team make sense. The league wants its teams to play games in their home cities by 2020; A third Chinese team has every interest in organizing a trip to Asia to play the team from Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shanghai, as well as the Seoul Dynasty and the Melbourne team. A team of designers is expanding the northeastern cluster of the United States with Boston, New York and Philadelphia. A visit to Toronto would not be unachievable on these trips either.
The exclusive signing period for Free Agents for Expansion Teams begins Sept. 9 and ends Oct. 7. Expansion teams will not have to look long for the best talent to store their lists; more than a quarter of the Overwatch League players have been released so far. Of course, this number does not include the many players of the Contenders and Open Division who are waiting for their shot in the major leagues.
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