Esports

Overwatch League’s London Spitfire head home in 2020 – but it could just be for ONE weekend


OVERWATCH LEAGUE is coming home in 2020 – but that could mean UK fans only have two chances to catch games in this country.

London Spitfire fans might actually only get one chance to see their hometown heroes and season one champions play in London once in 2020.

 Brooklyn's Barclay's Centre is the closest London Spitfire have got to playing at home so far

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Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Centre is the closest London Spitfire have got to playing at home so farCredit: AP:Associated Press

The majority of rest of their games will be played in around Paris, Boston, New York and Toronto.

Team’s aren’t just going to play home and away games individually, but will take turns hosting bigger events with up to eight games a piece.

The decision to arrange home events like this was only made in the past few weeks, after the success of April’s Dallas homestand event according to new league boss Pete Vlasticela.

That event, which saw eight games over two days along with other activities related to the game, was hugely successful with a sold-out arena packed to the gunwhales with screaming fans.

This model was repeated a week ago in Georgia, when Atlanta Reign hosted eight games across two days around the corner from the Atlanta Braves baseball stadium.

Both events attracted big ticket sponsors, with significant investment from Bud Light and Coca-Cola.

A third homestand event is planned for Auguest, when the Los Angeles Kit-Kat rivalry weekend sees the two LA-based teams going head-to-head.

The owners have all paid millions of dollars for the rights to control teams in 20 international markets, and are hoping that hosting events in 2020 will mean they start to see a return on their investment.

 The first homestand weekends this year gave players a taste of playing in arenas packed with their fans

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The first homestand weekends this year gave players a taste of playing in arenas packed with their fansCredit: Stewart Volland for Blizzard Entertainment

Sun Online got to catch up with Vlasticela, who is also head of all of Activision Blizzard esports operations, at that even to find out what next year holds.

He took over when the league’s founding commissioner Nate Nanzer left for Epic Games to help with competitive Fortnite earlier this year.

The focus for 2020 is going to be to get teams to put on “killer events” that are designed for fans to go to and enjoy in person rather than online, Vlasticela revealed.

“People are going to watch, and tell their friends to watch Overwatch League matches, if they come to an event and have a really great time,” he told The Sun.

While he thinks that is the best way to grow the league’s fan base, he appreciates the need for high-quality streams and content made for those watching online too.

As a result, there will be “a select number of events” that are optimised for broadcast rather than for local fans, but these will be in the minority, Vlasticela said.

 Sun Online caught up with Pete Vlastelica at the recent Atlanta Reign Homestand Weekend

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Sun Online caught up with Pete Vlastelica at the recent Atlanta Reign Homestand WeekendCredit: Tonya McCahon for Blizzard Entertainment

How will Overwatch League 2020 work

TEAMS are going to be ‘based’ in their home cities for the first time.

Rather than playing home and away games on a weekly basis, though, teams will take turns hosting ‘homestand weekends’ where fans will have around eight games to watch at one big event.

Each team will host between two and five of these events between February and August 2020.

Exactly where those events will be will be announced at a later date, but it is expected these will be spread around the areas near the team’s home cities, across their home market.

London Spitfire, for instance, could host a weekend in Manchester of Birmingham, while the Houston Outlaws might host games in Austin, Texas, and Guangzho Charge might organise a weekend event in Hong Kong.

The 20 teams are going to be split into four divisions across their two conferences, with most games played within those divisions:

  • The Pacific Conference:
    Eastern Division: Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Seoul, Shanghai
    Western Division: Dallas, LA Gladiators, LA Valiant, San Francisco, Vancouver
  • Atlantic Conference:
    Southern Division: Atlanta, Florida, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C.
    Northern Division: Boston, London, New York, Paris, Toronto

Individual teams will reveal their own schedules and venues at a later date.

 April's event in Dallas showed the way forward for 2020's home games

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April’s event in Dallas showed the way forward for 2020’s home gamesCredit: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment

One oddity to the new schedule is that different teams will be hosting different numbers of events.

While some teams will host as many as five weekends, potentially playing as many as ten matches of the season’s 28 matches in front of their hometown fans, others will host just twice.

This variation comes down to what the individual teams wanted, Vlasticela said.

“We gave every team an opportunity to take on more than two, and while a number of teams asked for more, some didn’t,” he revealed.

While the imbalance in number of home games might seem to give some teams an advantage over others, the teams themselves are happy, he claims.

“There aren’t teams out there wanted more events and didn’t get them,” he said.

Vlasticela was also keen to emphasise that this isn’t the league’s final form.

Describing the start in Burbank as the “crawl” phase, he sees next year as the “walk” phase as the league and teams try out all sorts of things that have never been done before.

After that things will evolve further based on what works, as well as on what didn’t.

“Next year is about like making sure we have a foundation that we can build from, because there are a lot of things we’re doing next year that have never been done before, certainly by by us or by a lot of these teams.”

For the league’s first two seasons the

 The fans and sponsors who bankroll Overwatch League both seemed happy with the homestand events

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The fans and sponsors who bankroll Overwatch League both seemed happy with the homestand eventsCredit: Ben Pursell For Blizzard Entertainment

teams were all based in Los Angeles around the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, but now the competition has been established they’re moving to their home markets.

Across the past two years 20 difference city franchises have been snapped up, with esports organisations and investors in major sports teams splashing out tens of millions of pounds to secure the rights to each area.

Next year also sees the launch of a Call of Duty league following the same model.

Some fans are concerned this might see Overwatch League being de-prioritised because of how high profile the Call of Duty franchise is, but Vlasticela insists there is nothing to worry about.

“We were not building marketing initiatives on behalf of our games, but building businesses and together with with partners,” he said.

There are 20 Overwatch League owners who have invested millions in their teams, with franchise fees for the most recent eight teams exceeding the original 12.

That level of investment means that Overwatch League is going to continue to be a serious focus for Activision-Blizzard going forward, he said.

“It would be completely irresponsible, and is not in the realm of reality, to imagine that we’re going to be taking our eye off the the OverWatch League just because we’re launching a new league,” he said.

 

 

 





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