The payoff

While Blizzard’s eventual vision for the Overwatch League is still years away, the immediate payoffs have been much better than expected. Skeptics that doubted whether there would be enough investors to even get the league off the ground were silenced when Blizzard sold all twelve Season 1 franchise spots by December 2017. And there are already rumors of organizations waiting in the wings for a league expansion in Season 2, despite Blizzard’s buy-in price reportedly jumping to US$60 million for the next wave of franchises.

Right before the league commenced, Blizzard also signed the biggest contract in esports history with Twitch, worth US$90 million for the rights to stream the Overwatch League for two years. The deal makes Twitch the sole broadcaster for half of the league’s 12 weekly matches, while the other half are simultaneously streamed on Major League Gaming, the streaming platform owned by Activision-Blizzard. It’s the most amount of money ever paid for the rights to stream an esport, but so far it’s paying off: over a million viewers tune in to watch the League on Twitch each week, far more than any other esport or channel.

And as the league grows, its sponsors grow too. Blizzard has also signed two year deals with HP Omen for US$17 million and Intel for US$10 million to supply equipment for the league. This is in addition to brand deals with Toyota, T-Mobile, and Sour Patch Kids, whose values haven’t been revealed but are expected to be in the same region. Individual teams have also reaped the bene ts of sponsorship, with London signing with Logitech, and Seoul signing with Razer and Netgear, among others.