The Overwatch League (OWL) could lastly be taking form, with reported buy-ins from the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins – two main US sporting manufacturers.
Here’s everything we know about the Overwatch League up to now.
The information comes by way of Richard Lewis, an esports reporter, who cites “sources close to Activision-Blizzard’s upcoming Overwatch League.”
Those sources say “it has been communicated internally that the owners of the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins, Robert Kraft and Stephen Ross, have both purchased slots in multi-million dollar deals.”
Blizzard have been working laborious to entice sports activities franchises to the OWL, with Bobby Kotick, president and CEO of Activision-Blizzard, personally concerned in pitching. One of Lewis’ sources says “Bobby has been really busy on this one… making personal house calls and constantly talking up the league. He spends about half of his working hours on this project alone and has been happy to finally land some big names”.
If this seems to be true, it’s a giant win for Blizzard, as there’s no actual proof but that the OWL will make sufficient cash to justify the large valuations they’ve positioned on league slots.
A report by Morgan Stanley in March could have gone a protracted technique to serving to their case: the agency estimated a best-case state of affairs of $720 million a 12 months in revenues for the OWL. That’s akin to the WWE, and 20% greater than Major League Soccer.
That report is, nevertheless, based mostly on some pretty daring predictions in regards to the esports market – Lewis says an esports proprietor dismissed it as “a joke that we’re all laughing about”. One imagines that laughter should be tinged with bitterness, nevertheless, if the report is getting used to court docket the cash of NFL franchises, with which present esports manufacturers merely cannot compete.
Indeed, immediately’s information will solely exacerbate considerations that conventional esports groups are being priced out of the market. Lewis says they don’t seem to be even being approached by Blizzard, and that they are being “pushed out” of the Overwatch aggressive group.
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