The Overwatch League wrapped up its sixth season last night and with it came more questions about the league’s future—as well as thoughts and memories about the history of the OWL.
Blizzard announced today it will be building its vision of a “revitalized esports program” for 2024 now that the sixth season of Overwatch League has concluded. Though this announcement is rather obscure and doesn’t tell us much about the future, a lot of people working on the Overwatch League are seemingly concerned that Blizzard will pull the plug once and for all.
OWL staff have published several posts indicating that on the Overwatch League’s official Twitter and personal accounts since last night, including a heartwarming speech made by the season six playoffs’ host Salome “Soembie” Gschwind-Repp. From an outside perspective, many of these posts seem like staff are saying goodbye to the Overwatch League.
“Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being part of this incredible journey,” Soembie said on behalf of the Overwatch League staff after the conclusion of season six.
Although the Overwatch League still has a passionate fan base and staff, it would come as no surprise to many if Blizzard decided to stop running the Overwatch esports program as we know it. Today’s statement follows months of announcements and reports that Blizzard and its esports teams are bleeding money because of how expensive the Overwatch League currently is.
It’s impossible to predict if Blizzard will nuke the Overwatch League or Overwatch esports as a whole as it did with previous games like Heroes of the Storm. But the vague announcement following the conclusion of season six leaves more than enough room for speculation.
All that Overwatch fans can hope for now is that Blizzard truly redesigns the way the game’s esports scene works and possibly switches it to an open ecosystem rather than charging millions of dollars in franchise fees. This would allow for new players to emerge and new teams to be formed if they have a perspective that they can compete in tier-one regardless of how much money they have.
