In imagining how Blizzard’s new Overwatch League will affect the Asia-Pacific region, specifically the Philippines, I could not help but think of a world where the second-best scenario has happened.

Ideally, many would hope that eSports would have achieved mainstream status. This status would not only preclude airing on primetime, but also a respectful take by the older generation. The more I thought about it though, the more that a few things became apparent:

• That yearning for eSports to be accepted without detraction or condescension is pointless bordering insipid and stupid.
• Blizzard’s new Overwatch League has some very important questions that need answering.

I wrote this piece because of point number two. To touch briefly on point the first: No amount of Overwatch League, sports investments or bellyaching will ever get people to stop their condescension of eSports. If you’re looking for Blizzard to finally make eSports legit, you’re on a fool’s errand.

Esports is as legit as the people inside it. Looking for the acceptance of mainstream is similar to an abused child yearning desperately for the approval of a proven monster of a parent. It’s pointless.

But now, on to the second.

The questions are many

Manila Panic. Cebu Talons. Davao Eagles. Singapore Titans. KL Tigers. These are teams that could exist in Blizzard’s new Overwatch League.

Blizzard’s 2017 league plans for Overwatch includes some familiar concepts from the sports world. Most important are that teams will represent specific cities; a team owner will bid for the right to represent a city, will operate in said city, and will be a perpetual part of the league. If you’re familiar with the NBA or NFL, you’d see where this is going.

Let’s preface this by saying that I am well aware that details are scant right now. These are simply questions that I will be looking for once the announcements roll out as to the specifics of the league. Think of it as an exercise in gauging whether the league will be healthy or not.

Blizzard’s head of global esports Nate Nanzer said on The Overview talk show that existing teams already invested in Overwatch will still be accommodated. He also said that the league is structured in a way that allows for sports investments to come more easily to the space.

In news reports in the past, sports franchise owners such as Mark Cuban have often commented on the volatile nature of eSports teams. For fans, the fact that a team can go from being the best one week to completely gutted of star players the next is nothing new, but it does scare away investors.

With Blizzard’s plans, it seems like the publisher want to match sports investments with eSports owners. Giving Kobe Bryant the ability to own a team that will always be in LA looks like it should be a win-win for owners and investors.

Nanzer says that at BlizzCon, Blizzard spoke to over a 100 teams currently invested in Overwatch. What is likely is that the existing team owners like NRG, EnVyUS, Rogue, Lunatic Hai, REUNITED and company will be allowed first dibs to bid for their city of choice. They will then be matched to interested investors. Looks good so far.

5 Nov Pao Bago @TheSandata

What happens to 3rd party tournaments? Say @GoingRogueGGbecomes the Vegas Rogues. Do they still keep a 2nd roster for 3rd party tourneys?

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@TheSandata Vegas Rogues. Rolls off the tongue quite well.

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But here’s the question: What does that mean for APAC?

It’s no secret that teams AND sports investors have deeper pockets out west. My fear is that this system of teams buying in and looking for interested sports investors might have different incentives for the APAC region. Would this mean that the buy-in numbers would differ from region to region such that the cost of buying a team slot in North America is different from Asia-Pacific? How about China?

If the numbers are too different, that might incentive Chinese investors to set-up shop in the Philippines instead, where the infrastructure, labor and buy-in costs would be lower than say, competing for a spot in China.

That opens up another question: Does that mean that Blizzard will be restricting investments and team ownership?

It sounds like a no-brainer, but the eSports landscape is filled with interconnected investors. On one scenario, we could have a Chinese investor owning a team in China and the APAC region, because of the aforementioned monetary incentives.

But on the other hand, you could also have an entity like ESForce, the company that owns stakes in multiple CIS teams, have their hands supporting different city teams. What will the ruling there be? Personally, I would like to see these types of investments regulated to ensure that competitive integrity is maintained.

Functionally however, a lot of teams are already so far entrenched in their current relationships with investment bodies that it might be unenforceable.

Thank heavens for ELEAGUE and OGN

Slightly below my list of questions are the feasibility of having Home and Away games for teams in the league. If you don’t follow traditional sports at all, here’s the gist: Your city teams either have games in their own city/stadium (their home game) or they travel to another city and visit another team and play in an Away game.

Obviously this is necessary for games like Basketball, but eSports has always took pride in being able to do away with the necessity of home-away systems thanks to the online nature of the games. Single, large LANs as culminating events are the norm instead. These big flashy events are the keystones to the eSports experience. There’s nothing quite like being in an arena packed with fans and enjoying a great game (my personal favorite is Dota 2. I’ve never been to a live LoL tournament at the premier level).

Nanzer has said that for 2017, home-away style games won’t be enforced but that the regular season will still see LAN play.

From this, I can only surmise that leagues like ELEAGUE and OGN have laid the groundwork for this decision. ELEAGUE and OGN do business by inviting teams to fly over to Atlanta or Korea, house them for the duration of the league, give them predictable league play schedules, and still allow them to join any third-party tournament of their choice.

And it looks like Blizzard will follow the same system. If nothing else, I’m glad that Blizzard is taking a page out of two tournaments that I enjoy. Having a league system that isn’t proprietary or exclusive makes all the difference.

But a question remains: Moving forward from 2017, does that mean that we will all see Home-Away style games for all regions?

My concern for APAC is sheer infrastructure. I can imagine a world where a Filipino team, Singaporean, Malaysian and Thai team all fly out to a central location for weeks on end to compete. That seems doable.

But to have every team have their own facilities that can house fans, the teams and the visiting competition? I am skeptical. First of all, the venue prices in the region are very volatile. Singapore and the Philippines have astronomical gaps between the rent prices, not to mention the costs of putting up a studio.

Second, the revenues to be generated in APAC are still lower than North America or China. If we go with the premise that APAC will have lower buy-ins, it stands to reason that they will do so because the earning and advertising potential isn’t as great.

What that means is that teams don’t have as big an earning margin from participating in eSports anyway. The reason why Dota 2 is so popular for teams to compete in Southeast Asia for example is that winning gives back so much in terms of prize money; relying on advertising doesn’t work nearly as well.

With that, the cost of having to fly in and out to visit other cities seems really expensive for APAC. I’m curious as to how Blizzard will answer this.

Conclusions

On the whole, I’m optimistic about Blizzard’s Overwatch League. The fact that they are learning from the good work done by OGN and ELEAGUE is at least a signal that the company is open to taking best practices.

Blizzard has not had the best track record in running eSports leagues, so to see them taking a page from companies that do allays my fears.

But as always the devil is in the details: because the system was created to incentivize the flow of money from sports investors, it would be interesting to track how these incentives actually affect stakeholders. Incentives are the building blocks of economics — how things play out in the real world will depend on the actions that are rewarded by your system.

As a parting thought, I just wish that Blizzard will learn from the past mistakes done by similar league structures, most notably the Championship Gaming Series or the CGS. Veteran journalist Richard Lewis outlines the fall of the CGS here in this link, but let me summarize: A mix of greed, short-sightedness and phony business-types torpedo’d what could have been a global league.

He covers it in an updated video here, but the lesson is the same. For the Overwatch League, let’s hope the money coming in doesn’t blind people from what matters. We all came here to watch some excellent Overwatch.

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