Once a niche subculture, esports and competitive gaming have now become a mainstream phenomenon. The Overwatch League and Call of Duty League feature wealthy owners from the NFL, League of Legends and Dota 2 regularly sell out stadiums, and Fortnite has its own World Cup. The next big sport could be a video game.
For its Tetris World Final in Dubai, Red Bull built its own board out of more than 2,000 drones, almost 500 feet high. Each player got five minutes to rack up a high score — can’t have those drone batteries dying, I guess — with Turkey’s Fehmi Atalar winning on the day.
Continuing a trend of video game investments — and despite criticism over Saudi Arabia’s history of human rights abuses — the country will partner with the International Olympic Committee for 12 years, with Olympic Esports Games events “held regularly,” according to a press release.
Saudi Arabia is currently hosting the inaugural Esports World Cup.
E-bikes open up cycling sports to more people, and not just the cheaters.
For 2025, Riot Games is adding a third international event, a new type of draft for certain series to encourage teams to use different champions (aka player characters), and new, condensed leagues for Asia-Pacific and the Americas.
I’m excited to see how these adjustments play out.
[LoL Esports]
According to a report in Bloomberg, Call of Duty League teams are negotiating a deal with Activision Blizzard that will increase the amount of money teams receive from skin sales while loosening restrictions on the kinds of sponsorships deals teams can make.
Meanwhile...
Last week, OpTic Texas owner, Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez, sued Activision Blizzard for $680 million, calling out the company’s alleged 50 percent event and merchandise revenue split requirement and its exclusive rights to the most lucrative sponsorship partners.
In news designed specifically for Overwatch esports nerds, the legendary Korean team RunAway has announced that it will return to participate in the OWCS.
RunAway’s arrival in the second season of the Overwatch League, forming the Vancouver Titans’ inaugural squad, made for the best season of competitive Overwatch not seen since the days of the Apex Tournament. They’re a beloved team with a fiercely loyal fanbase that will certainly bring excitement to the OWCS.
The top League of Legends esports circuit in North America will now be led by Mark “MarkZ” Zimmerman, Riot Games announced on Tuesday. Zimmerman is perhaps best known as in his role as an on-air personality for the league’s streams.
The schedule change, by the way, is much-needed; last season, games aired during the week, which meant I missed most of them.
Just a day after the League of Legends World Championship concluded, Riot has announced that the LCS — the game’s top league in North America — will be contracting. Both the Golden Guardians and Evil Geniuses are exiting, bringing the league to just eight teams for the future.
The news follows turmoil with LCS players earlier this year, and league mainstay TSM also exiting the competition. (It’s been rough for esports all around.) Riot says more details on “the full, long-term global strategy” for League esports and the LCS are coming in early 2024.
The opening ceremony for the annual League of Legends championship was another impressive blend of music and tech.
Blizzard says it’s working on “evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction,” after confirming the League’s end after six seasons.
“We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said in a statement to PC Gamer. “We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program. We will share details with you all in the near future.”
There had been signs this might be coming, like Wednesday’s press release from Toronto Defiant’s owner announcing its exit from the league. In October, Activision Blizzard said it was building a “revitalized esports program” for Overwatch.
The return of the Overwatch World Cup — which has been on hiatus since 2019 — ended with the kind of upset few would have predicted, as Saudia Arabia topped China to win the two-day tournament at BlizzCon 2023. If you missed it, you can check out the full highlights right here.
The opening ceremony for the League of Legends World Championship is usually pretty exciting even if you aren’t into League; last year’s featured Lil Nas X teaming up with a holographic mech (you can watch it below). We don’t know exactly what to expect this year, but the 2023 event at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul will include both K-pop stars NewJeans and the fictional boy band Heartsteel, and it takes place on November 19th at 4AM ET.
iam8bit and Riot Games are releasing a vinyl set of the anthems for the League of Legends World Championships from 2014-2023 (including NewJeans’ new track). Pre-orders start on Friday at 12PM ET.
The Florida Mayhem won what is likely the last Overwatch League Grand Finals in a 4–0 blowout over the Houston Outlaws.
What is likely the last Overwatch League Finals tournament has just begun. This year, eight teams will participate in a double elimination bracket live in Toronto to decide this year’s champions.
This year, the Atlanta Reign are likely to take the trophy making them the first (and probably only) expansion team to win the championship. Hopefully, the Grand Finals match will send the League off with a bang and not a whimper.
Though The Guard won Valorant’s Ascension tournament, earning them a promotion into the international league, the team will not compete in the 2024 season, and its roster has been dissolved.
As fans process the news that the Overwatch League is very likely in its final season, the teams themselves have apparently not gotten the memo, tweeting blithely in the face of their own looming destruction. But hey, at least Florida’s being cool about it.
Amid layoffs in the Activision Blizzard esports department, Overwatch League franchise owners will vote on whether to continue the league in its current format.
The League of Legends World Championship is taking place in South Korea this year from October 10th through November 19th. Here’s hoping we get another spectacular, tech-filled show ahead of the finals.
[LoL Esports]
It’s not a great time for esports — major organizations have had to do layoffs or even sell themselves to one another. But to help assure the community it’s still committed to esports, Riot Games’ president of esports just published a ~3,500 word blog post about the economics of the industry and some of its future plans.
[Riot Games]
