ESPN, Disney XD and Blizzard Announce Telecast Agreement for Overwatch League

DooKey

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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Esports must be getting pretty good if ESPN and Disney are interested in it. They along with Blizzard announced an exclusive broadcasting deal for the Overwatch League that kicked off on both cable networks last night. With that said, I've tried watching some esports and I couldn't really get into it. However, someone must be watching this stuff or else we wouldn't see two big cable networks carrying it. I guess it makes sense though since so many streamers seem to have large followings. I wonder how many [H] readers follow esports?

“We’re excited to be working with ESPN and DisneyXD to bring Overwatch esports to an even wider audience,” said Pete Vlastelica, President and CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports Leagues. “We’ve seen incredible passion and support from fans during the inaugural season of the Overwatch League, and we’re looking forward to capping it off for them with an epic Grand Finals at Barclays Center later this month.”
 
Trans and diversity politics injected into gaming by di$ney in 3 2 1...
 
I check out a few matches here and there of the Overwatch league and it's pretty good. I for sure will watch the finals. One thing I wish I could do is control the camera views. I'd rather watch a player in particular than all the jumping around.
 
I believe the target audience is 13-22 years old.
 
Montu said:
Esports must be getting pretty good if ESPN and Disney are interested in it. They along with Blizzard announced an exclusive broadcasting deal for the Overwatch League that kicked off on both cable networks last night. With that said, I've tried watching some esports and I couldn't really get into it. However, someone must be watching this stuff or else we wouldn't see two big cable networks carrying it. I guess it makes sense though since so many streamers seem to have large followings. I wonder how many [H] readers follow esports?

“We’re excited to be working with ESPN and DisneyXD to bring Overwatch esports to an even wider audience,” said Pete Vlastelica, President and CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports Leagues. “We’ve seen incredible passion and support from fans during the inaugural season of the Overwatch League, and we’re looking forward to capping it off for them with an epic Grand Finals at Barclays Center later this month.”
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They're under the false impression that fans of professional gaming watch cable TV. TBS and others have tried to capitalize in the past, but online viewership has never translated to cable viewership. They'll keep trying, I'm sure.

The third party commentary and directing kills it for me. If I'm going to watch someone play video games I want to see it on my own terms. Add to the fact that the genres that are popular in professional gaming are not interesting in the least to me.
PeaKr said:
Trans and diversity politics injected into gaming by di$ney in 3 2 1...
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Overwatch is diversity politics. ESPN's audience has been declining for the same reason.
 
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F.E.A.R. said:
I check out a few matches here and there of the Overwatch league and it's pretty good. I for sure will watch the finals. One thing I wish I could do is control the camera views. I'd rather watch a player in particular than all the jumping around.
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Agreed. When going through channels last night I stopped and watched a couple matches. The only good part seemed when they showed a replay, in which they focused on one player from their perspective. The rest of the time I could barely tell what was going on. It probably doesn't help that I've never played Overwatch.
 
Woody1150 said:
Agreed. When going through channels last night I stopped and watched a couple matches. The only good part seemed when they showed a replay, in which they focused on one player from their perspective. The rest of the time I could barely tell what was going on. It probably doesn't help that I've never played Overwatch.
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That's the problem with E-sports in general, games like Overwatch are very fast paced and at times the action is split across the map behind terrain. having the POV jump randomly to players that are not doing anything interesting Is annoying.
 
I've been watching the OWL for a while now on Twitch:
1. I'd like to spectate in the eyes of the player. First person, not third person.
2. The times they showed top-down positions that you can see where every player is was a great addition.
3. The times where I can see across the map, not locked to a random player's shoulder is great.
 
I'm surprised that no one has pointed out that Disney owns ESPN yet. They aren't so much different companies as the sports arm of Disney these days. There are even sports themed hotels at Disney world. ESPN is the main reason Disney couldn't purchase Fox sports.
 
Ironically I saw this on DisneyXD last night and decided to give it a shot.. again. I just couldn't get into it as usual. The top down view misses all the intricacies that make an FPS game competitive, and when they do go first person, they keep hopping around players randomly, so it's hard to really tell who you are spectating or what they are trying to do.

I went back to just watching the players I like on twitch.. which some players are just much more 'charismatic' than the boring comentators for Overwatch League.
 
I caught a few minutes of it and couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening. I guess you have to be a little kid to get it.
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
It's this shitty 6 vs 6 game for pussy ass bitches a.k.a. millenials who report you for gameplay sabotage if they don't like the character that you picked or abusive chat if you tell them they're doing poorly.
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Wow, sounds terrible.
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
It's this shitty 6 vs 6 game for pussy ass bitches a.k.a. millenials who report you for gameplay sabotage if they don't like the character that you picked or abusive chat if you tell them they're doing poorly.
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Like every other multiplayer game out there. Good to know.
 
motomonkey said:
You Banned Bro?
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LOL ...something like that..I got a 1400 day mute on my account. So now I get to listen to everyone being toxic to me and not being able to reply back. :cool::p

But I did also get a 4 week ban at one point for "gameplay sabatoge", but the hilarious thing is that this occurred during a period where I had the highest comp. rank on my account ever and I was really trying to win games. So I tried to explain to their stupid game mods that how can I possibly be throwing matches if I just reached my highest rank ever, but they don't care unless you're a high ranking streamer.

Also before they gave you the choice of making your game profile private,people in game could go into your stats and make certain inferences regarding you, for example if you reached your highest level but lost a bunch of games in a row after that and say dropped rank from like 2800 to 2200, they would automatically assume that you were throwing matches on purpose and thus report you for game play sabotage if you lost a game with them on your team and bully the other 10 players to report you as well.

I became a happier person and stopped randomly yelling out after I stopped playing...but personally, I hope someone punches Jeff Kaplan in the face really hard and does permanent damage TBH.
 
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TheMadHatterXxX said:
LOL ...something like that..I got a 1400 day mute on my account. So now I get to listen to everyone being toxic to me and not being able to reply back. :cool::p
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This is why it is important to learn how to properly troll this new breed of SJW gamer. You just calmly agree with them and ask how you can improve. Give helpful troll comments about you find the information they provide invaluable. Comment how you are going to reward all of them for their exemplary play. There is nothing better than positive trolling. Mods can't very well ban you for "perceived" sarcasm...
 
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