Blizzard's announcement of an Overwatch league, in NFL or NBA style, at last year's BlizzCon, excited fans and aspiring professional players. However, some information has now leaked that puts a damper on those hopes. A team place in the league should cost around 20 million US dollars!
The league should start this year. The concept of the league should be based on the association of the teams with the respective hometown. Examples include the Chicago Bulls team in the NBA or the New York Yankees baseball team. This is a common practice in these traditional leagues. The sums involved there are admittedly gigantic.
Overwatch League concept from Blizzard is questionable
It remains questionable whether Blizzard Entertainment can implement the concept with the team cities. Because if you look at other eSports leagues, the teams are usually not spread across the map. On the contrary, they are mostly grouped around the location of the weekly matches in order to avoid costly and time-consuming journeys. In Germany, for example, most LoL LCS teams are based in Berlin, near the Riot Studio.
To stay with the comparison: A team seat in the League of Legends league, the world's largest and most prominent esports division today, was sold for 1.8 million US dollars. This shows the $ 20 million that Blizzard is asking for even more exorbitantly.
According to the information available to colleagues at ESPN eSports, the 20 million is not the only catch either. The teams will receive a share of the league's revenues in 2021 at the earliest. However, only if certain, not publicly stated goals of Blizzard have been achieved. At the same time it was announced that a team that wants to sell its seat would have to cede 25% of the proceeds to Blizzard.
With these conditions it is no wonder that many investors are very cautious and that some teams have already had to withdraw their commitment. The extremely popular eSports organization Team SoloMid also recently split from 6 of their Overwatch players after the details of the Overwatch League became known. It remains to be seen whether Blizzard Entertainment will really stick to these plans. The shooter itself is extremely popular among fans, and a well-running league could boost this popularity again.
