Image: Blizzard Entertainment
RIP, Overwatch League: 2018-2023.
Activision Blizzard has made it official: the Overwatch League is over for good. The professional esports league first kicked off its competitive run in 2018 with an ambitious model structured after NFL-like North American pro leagues, using city-based teams that never rotated out of competition.
With the league’s death, Activision Blizzard will now have to pay these 20 teams a total of $120 million following a collective vote to leave the league. The competitive Overwatch scene will continue onwards, but likely under a very different format.
The Overwatch League is over
In a statement to PCGamer, Activision Blizzard confirmed that the competitive Overwatch scene is, “transitioning from the Overwatch League,” towards, “a new direction.” The statement reads:
We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction. We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program. We are excited to share details with you all in the near future.
The Overwatch League was first announced in 2016 before its first season of competition rolled out in 2018. At the peak of the game’s popularity, twelve teams were paid $20 million each to play in the 2018 season before eight more teams were added on later. The league played its final year of competition this year, where even its staff seemed to accept that this was the final installment of the tournament. Florida Mayhem was crowned as the league’s final champions.
The idea was for each of these teams to be based on an American city and thus grow a local fandom, but a few things got in the way of its actual success: most teams were not made up of Americans at all, the 2020 pandemic caused the league to hit a snag and interest in Overwatch as a whole continued to dwindle following the original game’s launch.
Blizzard’s statement hints that Overwatch will continue to have a future in esports, just under a different - and potentially less swanky - banner. Reporter Jacob Wolf claimed last week that Activision was negotiating with ESL FACEIT, a Saudi Arabian state-owned group to take over the league's operations. The next version of the esports franchise would then follow a more typical open-circuit format.
The end of the Overwatch League does not come as a surprise to its most invested fans and staff. Activision Blizzard first laid off its own esports staff in droves earlier this year, signalling big changes to come for its esports franchises.