The Overwatch League kicks off later this year with nine teams

By Gabe Gurwin Updated August 10, 2017

From the Overwatch League Office | Welcome Our Initial Seven Teams

Activision Blizzard has been trying to get a large-scale Overwatch league off the ground since the game launched last May, and it appears that the company has finally managed to make that happen. The Overwatch League will consist of teams from 10 major cities around the globe, with support from entrepreneurs in both esports and traditional sports.

Set to kick off later this year, the Overwatch League includes six teams from six American cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Miami/Orlando, and San Francisco. Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, will head up the Boston team, while New York Mets COO Jeff Wilpon will own his city’s team. The Los Angeles, Miami/Orlando, and San Francisco teams are owned by Noah Whinston, Ben Spoont, and Andy Miller, who run the esports organizations Immortals, Misfits Gaming, and NRG esports, respectively.

Recommended Videos

A second Los Angeles team has also been announced, owned by Stan and Josh Kroenke. Stan Korenke is the owner of the newly relocated Los Angeles Rams football team.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

In Shanghai, an Overwatch team will be owned by the technology company NetEase, while Kabam co-founder Kevin Chou will own a team in Seoul. Chou left the mobile gaming company a few weeks ago after its remaining assets were sold to FoxNext.

“As esports enthusiasts, we’ve always seen Seoul as the place to be for world-class competitive gaming,” said Chou in the announcement. “We’re very honored to represent the birthplace of esports as owners of the Overwatch League team in Seoul and [are] excited to work closely with the most passionate and enthusiastic gaming community in the world.”

Korea also currently has a very large competitive League of Legends community, and its League Champions Korea regular season is currently underway — you can view matches on the official YouTube channel.

Lastly, a team has been announced in London, owned by the Cloud9 esports organization. It’s currently the only team in the league from Europe.

“As the first major esports league to feature a city-based structure, [the Overwatch League] will drive development of local fan bases,” said Activision Blizzard. “For the first season of the league, regular-season matches will be played at an esports arena in the Los Angeles area, as teams develop their local venues for formal home and away play in future seasons. Matches will be played each Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.”

It remains to be seen if only seven teams will be enough to garner local fan bases, or if the league plans to expand to additional cities in the future, but it’s interesting to see competitive gaming take a page out of traditional sports’ playbook.

Overwatch is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can try out new hero Doomfist on the PC version’s Public Test Region.

Updated: Added information on second Los Angeles team and London team.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Gaming

FaZe Clan’s first all-female esports team is ready for the pressure

A team photo of all five members of FaZe Clan's first all woman esports team. Four of the members are holding up the fifth member and everyone is smiling.

In early March 2023, well-known professional esports and entertainment organization FaZe Clan announced that it had signed its first all-female esports team. Competing under FaZe Clan’s Valorant banner, the team features five pro players who are already pretty known within the esports space: Jennifer "refinnej" Le, Emma "emy" Choe, Vannesa Emely "panini" Emory, Madison "maddiesuun" Mann, and Diane "di^" Tran. The announcement of this new team brings FaZe Clan’s team roster up to a total of 14 teams.

"It's been a long time coming but we're stoked to officially announce bringing on our first all female esports pro team for Valorant," Erik Anderson, Head of Esports at FaZe Clan, said in the team’s announcement press release. "Signing this group of talented women is just the beginning of bringing female gamers to the forefront at FaZe and I can't wait to watch them play as a team.”

Gaming

Overwatch 2’s newest hero Lifeweaver is a game-changer for support players

overwatch 2s new hero lifeweaver 2

Overwatch 2's next hero has officially been announced: The support-class hero Lifeweaver will debut in season 4 of the free-to-play shooter in mid-April. Lifeweaver will be the 37th hero on Overwatch 2’s roster, and the ninth support hero following Kiriko's release when the game launched in the fall of 2023.

Blizzard has yet to release specific details on Lifeweaver's abilities or backstory, but players can catch a glimpse of the hero's playstyle in a short gameplay trailer released today.

Gaming

Counter-Strike 2 could succeed where Overwatch 2 failed

Soldiers in Counter-Strike 2 key art.

In 2023's most surprising news so far, Counter-Strike 2 is coming. The competitive shooter isn't just a follow-up to the massively popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but an upgrade to that game using the new Source 2 engine. A beta is already underway, with the full game scheduled to come sometime this summer. With how Valve is handling the project, I can't help but think of how Blizzard rolled out its own recent shooter sequel: Overwatch 2.

Both games are highly popular, competitive, and live-service style games with a heavy emphasis on cosmetics for monetization that have highly dedicated communities. The biggest similarity -- and also criticism in the case of Overwatch 2 -- is the fact that both sequels retroactively replace their predecessors, forcing everyone to upgrade to the sequel whether they want to or not. This is a relatively new concept in gaming, where older versions of online games become entirely inaccessible and Overwatch 2 didn't inspire a lot of confidence in it being a beneficial trend. That said, Counter-Strike 2 is already in a perfect position to succeed in all the ways Overwatch 2 failed.
If it ain't broke
In normal circumstances, a sequel is a developer's opportunity to iterate and make alterations to the core of the game that came before. Obviously, there's a limit to how big these changes should be -- a shooter shouldn't suddenly become a 2D fighting game -- but a combination of new features being added and old ones being removed is expected. That becomes a much trickier proposition in this new age of sequels where the new version is the only option. In the case of Overwatch 2 and Counter-Strike 2, players don't have the luxury of being able to keep playing the old version they loved.