Esports league starts strong on ambitious global schedule

y stood, y cheered, y booed and y boozed. Turns out, esports fans in New York aren’t much different from ir traditional sports counterparts. Packing a nearly 2,000-seat venue across street from Madison Square Garden, those supporters validated ory behind Overwatch League’s ambitious global vision.

“This event is everything we could have hoped for,” said Jon Spector, vice president of competitive video game circuit.

OWL opened its third season last weekend with matches hosted by franchises in New York and Dallas, and everything about sold-out shows looked like a payoff on its wr that a world-wide, city-based structure could propel it to top of a blossoming industry.

Those festivities were first of 52 scheduled events on home-and-away calendar that will bring competitions to 20 arenas spanning Europe, rth America and Asia. professional league — esports or orwise — has taken on such an arduous regular-season schedule.

While many fans are concerned about welfare of players — some still teenrs — league believes it has taken appropriate actions to prevent burut for stars of its 6 vs. 6, first-person shooter computer game, who earn over $100,000 per season on aver.

Of course, OWL still readily admits this globe-trotting adventure is an ongoing experiment.

“All 52 won’t be perfect," Spector said.

At Hammerstein Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan, endeavor's upside was apparent. Fans spent well over $100 for two-day passes and came out in force for doubleheader matches Saturday and Sunday. Four teams — New York, Boston, London and Paris — took turns squaring off, and fans had venue nearly filled even for undercards.

It felt like a typical, rowdy sports crowd — decked out in team gear from on-site merchandise stand, waiting in line for pizza and beer during lulls in action, and ruthlessly jeering rival Boston Uprising at every opportunity.

“ audience has always been here,” said Farzam Kamel, co-founder and president of Andbox, which mans New York Excelsior.

Blizzard Entertainment hoped exactly that when it sought to give global esports phemen a geographic twist. While or esports, like decade-old League of Legends pro circuit, have thrived with rootless franchises, Blizzard-backed OWL thinks future of industry involves bringing live events to invested parties throughout year.

After hosting nearly all its matches in seasons 1 and 2 at a facility near Los Angeles, Blizzard is starting its city-based experiment in earnest this year. Each franchise is set to host between two and five weekends of competition during a 26-week regular season that runs through early August.

It's coming just in time for a league lagging behind competitors in total viewers. OWL's Grand Finals averd 1.12 million viewers globally in 2019, far behind 21.8 million aver audience for League of Legends World Championship, according to Nielsen. By comparison, Game 7 of last year’s World Series averd 23.2 million viewers in U.S., and Super Bowl drew 112.7 million.

OWL fans have expressed concern recently about signs league's momentum is slowing, including an exodus by much of its popular on-air talent. Most troubling was misguided speculation that travel plans might require players to log nearly twice as many miles as traditional American sports athletes, worrying fans about plan's viability.

league strongly disputed those calculations and believes its been strategic eugh about its schedule to keep players fresh.

Rar than forcing teams to ping-pong around globe, OWL stacked schedules by territory. For instance, Paris Eternal will open with nearly two months on U.S. East Coast, save for a weekend in Houston. y'll split middle of season mostly in Europe, n close out with a four-week trip through China. Those legs will be peppered with bye weeks, especially before and after longest trips.

“Travel is inherently a part of a global league like one we've designed,” Commissioner Pete Vlastelica said. “We've done a lot of work to make sure burden of that travel is kept to an absolute minimum.”

total mile isn't as extreme as fans feared. league projects Paris' team to cover 52,000 miles, compared to approximately 40,000 miles per season for an NBA franchise. But it is more time on road.

Paris had players report to team housing in New Jersey in mid-January, and it will use that as a base for early part of season. y'll get similar setups during swings through Europe and Asia.

“It reduces travel time," Paris VP of Esports Derrick Truong said. "It allows us to be able to practice longer than or teams traveling from far away.”

league had already lost players to burut in previous seasons, when homesickness was an issue for its largely international player pool but travel weariness wasn't. Players expect to be tested this year.

“re are things like jet leg and traveling a lot; it’s physically hard," said TaeHoon “Fuze” Kim, a player for London, which is also starting season in New Jersey. "But because traveling and experiencing or cities are all fun to me, I don’t really mind it.”

re has already been a major complicating wrinkle, too. Early season matches in OWL's four Chinese cities had to be postponed due to coronavirus outbreak. Makeup dates and locations have t yet been anunced.

Blizzard is concurrently launching a similar global schedule with its first-year Call of Duty League, and it anticipates learning quite a bit between two circuits.

If it does work, it could have a rippling influence well beyond esports. rth America's big four professional sports leagues have all hosted games abroad in recent years, and full-time expansion to Europe or Asia would surely be appealing to many owners and international fans. If gamers can show it's possible, leagues like NFL, NBA and ors might borrow from ir playbook as y follow suit.

For all this jet setting, OWL certainly wouldn't mind being remembered for trendsetting.

“I've been saying this is sort of starting line for us,” Vlastelica said. “This is year we're going to do thing that we've designed.”