The first season of the Overwatch League will be played exclusively in an esports arena in Los Angeles, however, "to give our teams time to build their local capability". Activision Blizzard said on Wednesday that the league's first season will see teams competing at regular season matches in Los Angeles, with the teams eventually developing their own local venues to set up "home and away" match-ups for future seasons.
"The teams share in all the global revenues generated by the league, whether that's global sponsorship, global media rights for the content, global physical merchandise as well as virtual merchandise, as well as tickets and other things for league-run events", he said.
Steven Bornstein, a former ESPN and National Football League executive brought in to help run Activision's esports push two years ago, said the business has revenue opportunities traditional sports lack. "I think there's definitely some criticism between the time we announced the league at BlizzCon and this next announcement, but we wanted to make it a meaningful announcement, instead of dripping information out there along the way".
Later this year Activision-Blizzard's Overwatch League will finally begin.
The developer announced its vision for Overwatch League as a new esports model in November 2016 at BlizzCon-though Blizzard has kept quiet about the league's development since then. "We consider that to be a real inflection point for eSports".
Last month, ESPN reported that some prospective team owners had expressed concerns over the Overwatch League's proposed financials, which reportedly include $20 million buy-ins for the team owners. But its close similarity to traditional sports, and involvement from sports heavyweights like Robert Kraft, will make it a closely watched venture. If/when this figure is eclipsed, a percentage will be given to a shared league revenue pool.
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Teams also can profit from up to five amateur events a year in their home markets.
There are still plenty of unanswered questions about the Overwatch League, but what's clear is this is a massive step forward for competitive gaming.
Kraft and Wilpon are a behind the curve in terms of fielding teams.
Nanzer contends that the league's financial structure is "designed to create value for stakeholders for decades to come", especially with regard to the attractive demographics (the eSports industry is especially popular with male millennials) as well as the opportunity to grow local fanbases. For reference, a new MLS team today costs $150M to start, but was as little as $10M just ten years ago. It already has over 30 million players. Earning and maintaining a local fan base will be critical in each team's success. More than that, its announcement in some ways had a damaging effect on the tournaments operating outside of the league itself. However, Nanzer says Blizzard would be open to having a discussion about that if players want one. A number of esports teams have since dropped Overwatch, citing the game's uncertain future.
Nanzer envisions Overwatch League as a "forever league" that kicks off this year and never ends, similar to how the NFL and MLB started and have never stopped and never plan to.
So the World Cup isn't going anywhere, but Nanzer wasn't going to go into details about any possible changes.
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