Largest Overwatch Tournament in History Has a Lot to Prove

Counter Strike is manly bounty based, while in Overwatch you have heroes to handle and team up with. The move to broadcast Overwatch should come as no surprise as Overwatch had seen massive interest even before its release in May.

Overwatch and esports are joining hands as they stroll toward the mainstream, thanks to another tournament that will broadcast on TBS, a cable channel available in 90 million homes.

Craig Barry, Executive VP and Chief Content Officer of Turner Sports said in a statement, “This opportunity to feature Blizzard’s popular Overwatch further expands our esports offerings and aligns Eleague with a game that is widely embraced by the community”.

Similar to the ESL Atlantic Showdown, ELeague’s Overwatch Open is starting off with online qualifiers for European and North American teams, culminating with regional finals and finally the grand finals at the ELeague Arena in Atlanta. The North American Regional Finals will be played on September 25 and 26, while the European regionals will take place on September 28 and 29. ELeague will be teaming up with Turner, WME/IMG, and FACEIT, to set up the tournament with a prize pool of $300,000.

Not only does ELeague’s pursuit of Overwatch incentivize players to invest time and money, it could also give Overwatch a big boost in viewers.

While Rocket League never got the same prize support as Overwatch has been recieving, is that enough to make an esport?

With a $300,000 prize pool, Twitch viewers are more likely to be invested in the action. It hovered between 30-60k for the entirety of the event. You can bet we’ll be keeping our eyes on it, but the question remains: Will Overwatch get the viewership it needs to stick around? The game now boasts over ten-million players, pointing to a very healthy competitive scene. ELeague counts FaceIt, WME-IMG and Turner as founding members.

Soon enough, we will know how Overwatch fares in comparison with CS:GO and Street Fighter V. This will be the ultimate proof of concept for a game that’s still having spectator issues, as well as one that’s not exactly the most spectator friendly – its high speed and colorful effects will make it extremely hard to follow for a general television audience.