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The London Spitfire beat rivals Philadelphia Fusion to win the Overwatch League title in Brooklyn. (David 'Dee' Delgado / for the Washington Post)
The London Spitfire toppled the underdog Philadelphia Fusion on Saturday afternoon, a leading scorer for a Premier League year. who started playing in January with drawings on the revolution of how esports is played, structured and consumed. Confetti, costumed fans, rowdy atmosphere – it was part of the OWL dream as well as the league plan.
Saturday marked the culmination of the inaugural season, and while the up-and-coming league touted it as a huge success, it was only one step away. The imminent transition to local markets will ultimately define the success not only of the league, but also whether its ambitious model can really reshape the landscape of esports.
"The city-based format really took off in a bigger one," said Nate Nanzer, the league's commissioner, "and, frankly, as if I knew it would work – for all the reasons that work in traditional sports.I just thought it might take longer. "
The league (OWL) was not designed to be a fast system. It aims to have the power and popularity of traditional sports leagues like the NBA or the NFL, connect with communities like the New York Yankees or the New England Patriots, and generate revenue that blurs games and the sports. I think it's still a long-term game. A year in a sports league is unimportant, "said Jonathan Kraft, chairman of the Kraft Group, owner of the Boston Uprising franchise of OWL and the New England Patriots. "We have done it in order to create long-term asset value."
Long before Saturday's championship officially marked the end of the inaugural season, OWL officials were busy preparing for Season 2 and up. ESPN recently reported that the league is finalizing deals with three expansion franchises – one in Atlanta, one in Paris and another in Guangzhou, China – and up to three others could be in. courses, each sold for between $ 30 and $ 60 million. And while the most ardent fans of the league are used to watching OWL games via the Twitch live video service, the league has also signed a broadcast deal this month that will put the next games on ESPN and Disney. exceeded expectations for many team leaders – broadcasts averaged between 80,000 and 170,000 simultaneous viewers – team and league officials are confident that their first-year successes are that a foretaste of what awaits them. They think the league continues to roll on the track, and although there are some potential obstacles ahead, they think they're following a plan that will revolutionize the esports.
"If Overwatch League is successful, model each publisher, for every league and for every team that exists in the world," said Noah Whinston, general manager of the Los Angeles Valiant franchise. "Having a localized model on this scale has never been attempted before.If this league is successful, I think it throws much of the conventional wisdom on esports off the table."
Local vision of a world league
Both teams The players were sitting on a stage at one end of the arena, eclipsed by the giant video dashboard. London Spitfire's favorite team consisted of six Korean players, all of whom would be carded by any bartender in Brooklyn, and the Philadelphia Fusion featured six players from five different countries. None of the actors in the scene were American and none had a tangible connection with the city he had represented in the past four months.
The novelty of OWL is its geolocation model in which the 12 franchises are tied to specific cities, just like the traditional sports leagues. This is an original formula and based on the first returns, Blizzard, the game 's publisher, could possibly use the same approach with other titles, including Call of Duty, a title. popular esports for a dozen years
[ESPN secures Overwatch League broadcast rights, continuing esports’ mainstream surge]
. At OWL, all teams were in the Los Angeles area and playing their matches at the same 450-seat studio in Burbank, California, which once hosted "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson".
But the owners hope that in the third year – 2020 – the teams will move to their current cities, which will open up new sources of revenue. A report from the Newzoo market research firm earlier this year suggested that global income from esports will exceed $ 900 million this year and will almost double over the next three years. The OWL teams know that money is available, which is why the franchise rights of the original 12 teams have sold for $ 20 million each.
"In the end, being a force – creating the types of monetization you want on a local basis, the team must be more regularly on the market," said Kraft.
Fans of London Spitfire Celebrate Victory (David 'Dee' / Delgado / For The Washington Post)
The league sought out owners who have experience in traditional sports, which include the culture of The owners of the OWL are the Kraft family, Fred Wilpon, owner of the New York Mets, and Stan Kroenke, owner of the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Rams, but with the squads representing the cities only. There are so many things that they can do with this knowledge, because the teams have organized surveillance groups and tried to elicit the interest of the local media, but the possibilities are inherently limited. [19659023] Selo n estimates, 150 million people watch esports globally, a figure that should increase in the coming years. But the league wants a particularly greedy audience to flourish in the handpicked cities of the league. They can then take advantage of this fandom and create revenue streams: ticket sales, merchandising, local sponsorships, community partnerships.
"I think monetization is the central issue in business," said Whinston. "We all know how big the public is … We are still far from generating tens of millions of dollars on an annual basis, but I think we have taken the right steps to start proving the different Model Pieces. "
The Overwatch League Grand Finales Provide a Critical Spacial Lesson: Adapt or Die]
Kraft Compares the Season 1 Target Audience of the League to a Fruit in handy, largely players who do not need a lot of twisting.
"I think that start attracting and educating casual hobbyists and establishing a geographic connection – I think of people who do not like hockey but who say," The Bruins are my team because They live in Boston, "he said. "I think you have to be in the market to take full advantage of this situation."
"Once on the market, these less than alpine fans then have a reason to start paying attention.That's when we really need to move up a gear," he said. he continued. "Look, the league has launched with great success, no one can dispute it. … and we will become stronger next year. But the next big test will be when we enter the market in 2020. "
Cosplayers dressed as their favorite characters in Overwatch for the first final final (David 'Dee' / Delgado / For The Washington Post) [19659030] Can a game become a hobby?
Overwatch, barely two years old, already has a loyal clientele.The fans who flooded Brooklyn – many of whom lined up hours before the start. Barclay Center doors open – wore material representing the 12 teams of the league, many of which sported the names of specific players on their shoulders.Many others came dressed in costumes as the heroes of the game – Sombra, Zarya , Widowmaker and even Wrecking Ball, a new hamster character introduced last month, among them – and seemed to connect to the characters in the game as much as to the players using them.
In the arena, the players stayed most of the time sitting on the stage, their hands doing all the work invisible, their heads masked by monitors. Most of the actions took place on the gigantic videoboard. Overwatch is a six-on-six shooting game, a futuristic adventure that is both the reason for the instant success of the league and perhaps a slight cause of trepidation
Even though the league took off this spring, many players started climbing this year to another title. Fortnite undoubtedly became the game of the moment, reaching 125 million players and raising $ 1 million a day
"What Fortnite has done is absolutely incredible," said Tucker Roberts, president of the Fusion franchise. "This is attracting fans of Overwatch, League of Legends, Dota, Counter-Strike, all the biggest games that have been around for years – it's not a joke. do not think it will last forever. "
Fortnite and his royal battle format do not lend themselves to a team league, and OWL officials do not hesitate to point out that There are always new titles. Even if some siphon players temporarily, good games – think: StarCraft, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Warcraft – tend to stay active.
[ Are professional athletes playing too much Fortnite? Some teams worry.]
"From my point of view, the fears of the hucksters and games that fall out of favor are a little exaggerated," said Whinston. "Of course, there are casual fans who will go from one game to another, but I think it's too simplistic to say," Well, a new game will come and Overwatch will lose its popularity . ""
The key is evolution – updates, new maps, new characters, new technology – unlike traditional sports, esports have the opportunity to tweak their games anytime, even in the season. regular updates and this year even introduced a new character in the middle of the season, which forced the teams to change strategy and improve the league hierarchy.As a result, the best team of the regular season, the New York Excelsior, was eliminated in the semifinals of OWL The Fusion, which slipped into the playoffs with sixth and last place, was found in Brooklyn this week
While baseball or football would never fundamentally change its rule book in the middle of the season, OWL officials "I think there are a lot of traditional sports struggling for ga rder committed fans and engage with younger fans because they have not evolved for 100 years, "said Nanzer. "And I think that's an advantage we have over traditional sports."
The championship trophy for the first final of the Overwatch League. (David 'Dee' Delgado / For The Washington Post)
Building On The Base
The league said that it sold the some 11,000 places available for the two-day finals . All fans looking on the secondary market for tickets last week were paying at least $ 125 to enter the arena. DJ Khaled played before the main event of the day and for the next 75 minutes, all eyes were glued to the videoboard. At the bottom, the cameras were fluttering, zooming in on the players. It was broadcast live on Twitch and should be rebroadcast in prime time on ESPN2
The linear broadcast agreement is considered a big step for the young league. It has not only validated the place of esports in the North American sports landscape, but it also has the potential to expand the reach of OWL. Team leaders know that players are comfortable turning to Twitch, but think that there is also a potential audience more accustomed to traditional cable. (Twitch is owned by Amazon, whose founder, Jeffrey P. Bezos, is the owner of the Washington Post.)
"Your core of fans might not go out there, but their parents and friends can do it "who is the son of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.
This could potentially help integrate sport so that the discussion is not relegated to online portals, university dormitories or school hallways. It could be discussed on sports talk radio, featured on SportsCenter and debated at the desktop water cooler. His audience would not be just those who play Overwatch themselves.
"I do not necessarily think that there is a mainstream mainstream non-gaming audience that we need to make breakthroughs," Whinston said. "I think basically what you need to do is develop your audience by channeling the same passion as the local fan base for their sports teams, so think of it this way, no one would say that you need to play baseball for to be a fan of baseball, I believe that what we are building is something of a social and cultural movement. "
From the way the team and league leaders see it, they started in a company where the market was already in place for an attractive product.And OWL officials rely on them for a while.
"Have you met a 12-year-old recently?" asks Nanzer . "Because if you have, I guess all they do is watch other people play video games on Twitch and YouTube. And it will not change like magic when they are 35 years old. It's not like they were going to be 35 and say, "Well, I'm a baseball fan now."
They're hoping the party will be held Saturday at Barclays C & # 39; was just a glimpse into the future: fans filling seats, long queues on merchandise stands, captivating competition taking place on stage
This commitment could only become more common in generations to come. – As in 20 years, I do not think there will be non-players, "Roberts said. "I think children today will have children and play with their children. It's like who today do you know who does not play any sport? Everyone has at least some familiarity. I think that's where things are headed. "
The Barclays crowd certainly knew what they were looking at: they held up placards, encouraged their favorite players and got an exciting final.London entered the day after winning three games in a row. , including a 3-1 Friday win Led by 18-year-old Joon-yeong Park, a better-known damage specialist in the Overwatch world as "Profit," the Spitfire won the Junkertown card, crossed the Lijiang tower and sealed the title by fighting and overthrowing the Fusion on King Row, a London-inspired map
The Spitfire is already planning to take the trophy to London in October, along with its team of all-Korean players.
"We are really excited to meet face to face," said Spitfire CEO Jack Etienne. "They supported us all season, staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning."
More than 310,000 watched the last minutes on Twitch, and the crowd inside the Brooklyn Arena showered the Korean. London champions with praise
"I think it gave us an excellent base to build in 2019," said Commissioner Nanzer. "And you know, I think one of our guiding principles as a league is to make sure that each season is better than the last and I think it will be a great event to energize us."
Mike Hume contributed to this report.
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