Blizzard has just announced the most ambitious competitive scene to date that even rivals the already-successful League of Legends and Dota 2 eSports. The new Blizzard eSport is called the Overwatch League and will showcase laudable concepts such as establishing permanent teams, global and local tournaments as well as professional players' financial stability and security.
Overwatch League: Three Fundamentals of the eSport
In an interview with Polygon, Blizzard explicitly stated that the three main pillars of establishing the Overwatch League are: consistency, stability and accessibility. Basically, the main goal of Overwatch League is to create a competitive community where there's harmony between the three foundations. Let's take a look at how Blizzard sees these three pillows interact with one another.
Overwatch League Will Establish Permanent Teams
One of the concurrent issues in the popular League of Legends and Dota 2 competitive scene is the constant disbandment and recreation of new teams. Blizzard doesn't view it as a healthy way to move in a competitive scene. The company's answer to this is to feature permanent teams much like that of NFL where there are permanent teams within the league. When asked about the conception about this concept, the vice president of corporate operations, Gio Hunt has this to say:
"Overwatch is a brand new game and a brand new ecosystem. We think having permanent spots for teams is really going to give team owners confidence - and not just team owners, but media partners, sponsors, everyone that's going to be involved in the Overwatch League."
How Does Overwatch League Choose Its Permanent Teams?
Blizzard will apply the "promotion and relegation" system which will serve as the definitive factor to choose for a permanent team. Of course, a team can then be demoted and replaced by a younger team once the organization fails to perform significant accomplishments throughout the year. Aside from having permanent teams which gives security to both its players and the organization itself, Blizzard will also require the organization to provide contract that will stipulate a guaranteed minimum salary for all of its players as well as full benefits while still in the respective organization.
Blizzard's Visions for Overwatch League
Aside from establishing security and long-term goals for its professional players and organizations, Blizzard is also hoping to start its college plans for all of the aspiring pro-players as they acknowledge that most of the competitors in eSports are from young talents worldwide. Aside from that, the studio also announced its plans to provide off-seasons during fall and winter for each year, making sure that there's still a healthy third-party competition outside of the Overwatch League.
Realization of Overwatch League
Blizzard is expecting to commence the first ever Overwatch League in the early Q3 of 2017. In the recent BlizzCon 2016, the studio has invited prominent eSport organizations from all over the world to discuss the fruition of their bold plans. Stay tune for more updates of the hottest eSport yet!
