Overwatch League players, while on a team's contract, are paid an annual salary. In the first year, a player's salary was a minimum of US$50,000 set by the league. Additionally, the league offers players with health and retirement benefits, as well as housing and training support. Blizzard required team owners to provide the signed players with bonuses representing at least 50% of the team's winnings and revenue.[15] Players can negotiate for larger amounts with their team's owners and larger portion of the bonus revenue-sharing from tournament winnings and other income. For example, in 2017, Jay "sinatraa" Won secured the league's highest salary of $150,000 for his spot on the San Francisco Shock, along with a 50% share of the team's bonuses.[16]
Watch Kingdom Of Gladiators, The Tournament (2017) online with english subtitles
Players are expected to follow a code of conduct set by Blizzard while playing and representing the league, and may face suspension and fines for violating these, in addition to any penalties the team itself may impose.[17] A noted incident shortly after the league's launch saw Dallas Fuel's Félix "xQc" Lengyel suspended by the league for four games and fined $2,000 for making homophobic comments about another player; the Fuel further suspended him for the remainder of the first stage of play.[18] Following additional conduct violations in the second stage that led to further suspension, xQc was released by the Fuel.[19] Blizzard has since started its online "discipline tracker" in December 2018 to list players who have been temporarily suspended or fined for actions related to their behavior as representatives of the Overwatch League.[20] Players, as part of their benefits, receive media training to help with speaking to the press and public about their roles, an issue that has been a problem in previous organized esport systems.[21]
Players or teams can then move up from the Open Division into Overwatch Contenders, a minor league to the Overwatch League. Contenders was launched in 2018 to merge existing regional tournaments into a structure to support the Overwatch League. Contenders consists of several global divisions with a number of teams within each, which may include both professional and amateur players. Contender teams may be affiliated with an Overwatch League team as an academy team, and up to two players per academy team can be signed to two-way contracts to be moved between their academy team and Overwatch League team.[11]
Contenders was launched in the first half of 2018 with five divisions with 12 teams each: Korea (replacing the Overwatch Apex tournament), China (replacing the Overwatch Premier Series), and Pacific (replacing Overwatch Pacific Championship for other Asian-Pacific countries), and adding in North America and European divisions. Prior to the second 2018 Contenders season, Blizzard added two additional divisions, for Australia and South America, bringing the total to seven. The top eight teams from the Open Division within each region are also invited to Contenders Trials, a weekly promotion and relegation tournament to compete in the following week of Contenders.[23] For its second season in 2019, Blizzard adjusted the format by reducing the number of teams in each region to eight, while dividing the North American region into East and West divisions. Blizzard also added a regional limit of the number of "import players", which are those that live outside the division's region, to a maximum of three.[24] These changes were reverted for the 2020 season.
In September 2017, Blizzard announced that they would make permanent use of Studio 1 at The Burbank Studios in Burbank, California, which it converted into the "Blizzard Arena", an esports venue which was initially used for both Overwatch Contenders and Overwatch League matches.[41] Having a dedicated arena was seen to help establish the Overwatch League as a more orchestrated event compared to other esports tournaments, and to better connect players with their fans.[42] Blizzard operated Overwatch Contenders in the Blizzard Arena in October as a means to test the facility's capabilities and make modifications to improve both the players' and audiences' experience in time for the pre-season of the Overwatch League in December.[42]
However, due to restrictions put in place to counteract the COVID-19 pandemic, the league suspended all homestands and announced that it would instead move to online play after less than a month into the 2020 season.[76] In an official statement, Blizzard Entertainment stated its intentions of returning to the homestand format "as soon as it is safe and logistically possible".[77] As the city of Los Angeles ordered the closure of all entertainment venues,[78] nearly everyone involved with the production including casters and the desk worked from home for the remainder of the season.[79] Soon after the switch to online play, the league abandoned the original conferences and instead divided the teams into two regions to account for the geographical spread of the teams. Teams exclusively competed within their regions for the duration of the regular season, with the only inter-regional matches taking place at the very end of the playoffs period. The 2020 season also introduced mid-season tournaments, featuring three across the regular season, all still split by region.[80] At the end of the 2020 season, commissioner Pete Vlastelica stepped down to take on a new position;[81] he would be replaced by Call of Duty League commissioner, Johanna Faries, who would be commissioner of both leagues.[82][83]
The league continued regional, online play throughout the fourth season, although some live events were planned to take place in China.[84] The OWL expanded on its tournament format from 2020, featuring four midseason tournaments throughout the regular season.[85] In July 2021, the league announced it would host its two postseason events live at two different venues: the playoffs would take place at Esports Stadium Arlington in Arlington, Texas, and the 2021 Grand Finals would be held at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, California.[86] However, these live events were later canceled and shifted to online play due to increasing risks of COVID-19 and the Delta variant, as well as visa difficulties.[87][88] A majority of the league's partners pulled their sponsorship after the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for sexual harassment and discrimination taking place within the Blizzard workplace in July 2021, including Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, State Farm, and T-Mobile.[89][90] In mid-August 2021, the only sponsor present during Overwatch League broadcasts was voice-over-Internet Protocol software company TeamSpeak.[91]
Activision Blizzard used the Overwatch League model to establish the Call of Duty League in 2019.[126][127] While the Call of Duty League was to have its inaugural season in 2020 with the same planned home/away format that the Overwatch League was planning the use in its third season, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Call of Duty League to switch to a fully online format.[128] The league was a central plot element in the seventeenth season episode "Brave N00b World" of American Dad! which was first broadcast in May 2020.[129] 2ff7e9595c
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