It’s been rough few days for the scene.
A wave of team releases has colored competitive Overwatch in black over the last ten days. Denial Esports set the tone on May 2, the move announced by team’s tank Felix “xQc” Lengyeal, and soon enough all of Red Reserve, Team SoloMid and compLexity followed suit. May 10 saw the departure of a fifth team.
Having formed their Overwatch division in June 2016, Splyce say goodbye to Blizzard’s squad-based shooter after less than a year of activity. Captained by support Bradford “PYYYOUR” Ross, Splyce’s multiple roster iterations struggled to score major tournament successes, mostly becoming known as strong open cup competitors with five grand finals and three golds on their account.
The news regarding Splyce’s step back from Overwatch came directly from co-founder Marty Strenczewilk, who announced the move on YouTube.
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“We’ve been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now as we explored the options around competitive Overwatch right now, what’s out there for teams to compete in, invest in new infrastructure. […] If we were going to invest more money in the game right now, we wanted to have a real understanding of what we’re investing our money into and where this is going,” Strenczewilk said.
For Over.gg, Captain PYYYOUR added:
"From adequate results to some more adequate results to a team that has the potential to break through obscurity into true high level play, it has been a truly fun ride. The environment is changing and organizations and players must adapt appropriately. Wish our team was competing in OWL or a subset below the "premier" league, but for now, that will not be the case. Thanks to the organization, fans, and players, past and present. I wish you the best."
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Strenczewilk’s concern has been echoed by other team owners as well, and a lot has to do with the uncertainty surrounding the Overwatch League (OWL), Blizzard’s major LAN circuit that’s supposed to kick off sometime this year. Initial reports spoke of buy-in fees up into the league in the $2M-$15M range—a hefty price to pay for all endemic esports brands—but those might not even be the highest numbers. A recent ESPN report stated that teams are reluctant to buy into OWL after being asked for a “$20 million franchise fee” into a buy-in league that doesn’t guarantee teams “revenue sharing until after 2021 and only if Blizzard meets certain criteria”.
It is therefore not surprising that the first two names reported to have bought into Overwatch League—namely Robert Kraft and Stephen Ross, owners of NFL teams New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins, respectively—have billions at their disposal and are able to afford the steep figure Blizzard are asking for. At the same time, the prospects ahead of native esports team look bleak and it wouldn’t come as a surprise if more esports brand depart from Overwatch indefinitely by the start of OWL, which reiterates the question of what will happen with the lower tiers of the eSport should competitive Overwatch become the playground of the wealthy.
