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Hey friends, how's it going? It's been too long and I apologize for the long gap between my posts. Today I'm introducing my own regular blog topic: Tim's OWL Corner! Much like Keith's rxtrospective posts, I will regularly devote my time on the blog to the Overwatch League, or OWL for short. I don't pretend to be a video game journalist. For high quality video game journalism, check out Janet Garcia's work @Gameonysus.
Today's post will be simple with just a short explanation of the league and E-Sports in general. In later posts I will discuss all of the teams, recap last season, and discuss what there is to look forward to. I hope to garner up some interest in OWL from video game players, traditional sports fans, and anybody else who likes a good time.
E-Sports, or electronic sports as it is short for, is the legitimization of competitive and professional video game playing. Much like traditional sports, E-Sports took games people played for fun and found a market to play them at a high level. South Korea gets credit for being the birthplace of E-Sports. There had been competitions in America dating back to the 1970s, but E-Sports really blew up with the advent of broadband internet in South Korea in the late 1990s. South Korea very quickly found a desire for E-Sports in their population and arenas were quickly selling out for people to watch live competitions of games like Starcraft, Warcraft II, and Warcraft III. Not at all coincidentally, all of those games are the product of Blizzard Entertainment and Blizzard has stayed relevant in E-Sports ever since.
Which brings us to the modern day. E-Sports is being broadcast 24/7 across the world. ESPN showed live competitions of Heroes of the Storm (another Blizzard game) several years in a row with the champions winning college tuition (the aptly named "Heroes of the Dorm" competition.) Schools have started giving away scholarships based on E-Sports careers and my law school Alma mater DePaul even has an E-Sports Computer Lab now.
Overwatch, the game this post is really about, is a Blizzard game same as the games mentioned previously. It came out in 2016 and can be played on PC, X-Box, or Playstation, although you cannot play on one of those platforms against people from another platform. (For example, I play on the PC, which means I can't play my brother Keith if he plays on his Playstation 4.) The game consists of two teams of six facing each other with different goals depending on the map they are playing in. For example, sometimes one team is tasked with escorting a vehicle to the end of a map and the other team is trying to prevent them from doing so in the allotted time. (An "escort map") Other times, the two teams might be fighting over one central area and whomever controls that area for 100 seconds wins. (A "control" map.) Overwatch is often times described as a "multi-player first person shooter" detailing the camera angle in the game as well as the style. When you play, you take control over one of over 20 unique characters with different abilities and fighting styles. Different characters fulfill different roles on a team much like the different positions in football, basketball, or any other traditional sports.
OWL is the first Blizzard operated E-Sport for Overwatch players. The inaugural season started on January 10, 2018 and ended with the Grand Finals on July 28, 2018. The inaugural season had 12 teams representing 12 cities across the world.
Boston
Dallas
Florida (Only team that is not a specific city.)
Houston
London
Los Angeles (Two Teams)
New York
Philadelphia
San Francisco
Seoul
Shanghai
While the teams represent 12 different parts of the world, all of the teams resided in team houses in L.A. and competed at the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California. There is talk to one day have the teams actually be stationed in their "home" cities, but that has not started as of this time.
OWL's first season was a huge hit, with 10.8 million viewers worldwide for the Grand Finals between the London Spitfire and the Philadelphia Fusion. London won the Best of 3 Finals 2-0. It also should be noted that although the team is "from" London, most of the players on the Spitfire are South Korean. The same can be said about the New York Excelsior and the Seoul Dynasty.
I'm excited to talk about OWL more and more on this page. Keith and I were very into watching the league this year and rooting for our team of choice, the Houston Outlaws. The Outlaws have a great color scheme (which drew Keith in), come from Texas which is where my mother-in-law is from, and they have inarguably the best logo. I will get more into them in my next OWL Corner where I plan to discuss every team, including the eight new ones coming in for Season 2.
