Even if the Overwatch league has only been officially in operation for five months, team bosses within the league are always shocked and frightened by the sponsor's response to it and the revenue it can attract from the franchise sale rights given by OWL. Moreover, based on the regional business characteristics of OWL and the consumption desire in the local market, these new business opportunities will only emerge for OWL's team.
Our interview with London Spitfire and C9 owner Jack Etienne has sparked discussions from some top esports analysts: He expressed his hope to see CS:GO follow owl's footsteps (build a similar esports alliance). CS: Many people in the GO field rejected the proposal and said a closed franchise system cannot provide fair conditions for all teams to start. But it seems that off-site sponsors have unexpected interest and investment in this permanent seating team.
"owl has raised the sponsor income to a height I once thought would not be impossible in 2018." Etienne said in response to peek king Rod "Slasher" Breaslau on Twitter.
This means that C9's activities in other fields, including LPL (another franchise event they participated in), cannot compare with OWL's.
Although the specific sponsorship amount (such as the deal between the London Spitfire and Logitech) has not been made public, an ESPN report listed some of the sponsorships that OWL received in the deal with Twitch, totaling about $90 million, as well as advertising sponsorship fees given by HP Omen and Intel , for 17 million and 10 million respectively. At the same time, the amount of sponsorship cooperation with Toyota, T-Mobile, and Sour Patch Kids has not been disclosed. Jacob Wolf's report estimates that these revenues will be about four times the league's initial expectations.
Seoul Dynasty team also responded to this view. Although it is the only Korean brand team in OWL operating in North America, they are also looking for brand sponsorships that can attract fans on an international level.
"We are very satisfied with the existing sponsors and their recognition of OWL Energy, but that's just the starting point." Kent Wakeford, COO of Seoul Dynasty, told us. "We are trying to bring in real global brand sponsorships and trying to bring in sponsorships that are really suitable for us. We are pleased with the reactions of OWL and its sponsors to us, and we think these (sponsorships) will only continue to grow in the future."
So, if the team itself is already satisfied, or as in London, is already shocked by the revenue currently present at OWL, where will the league develop from here?
The answer to all this is buried in the league itself and the OWL plan to begin season three, where local fans can watch the game — at least for the Los Angeles Valkyries, which is based in Los Angeles and has Microsoft support.
"OWL's commitment is that from that point on, the team will have a real local market and be able to earn revenue from its home operations," Ari Segal, president of LA Valiant, told us. "The teams will be able to sell food and drinks in the team's mall. At present, each team does not have such opportunities. The teams cannot get ticket revenue in the game of Blizzard Arena because this is not their own venue. The teams currently perform better than expected, but at the same time there are many and increasing expenses. Because the teams are not operating locally, the business opportunities are not yet fully mature."
, which has the background of NHL (North American Hockey League, one of the four major sports leagues in North America), continued to analyze the reasons why traditional sports have a little advantage in revenue, but he believes that this will change over time, and eventually the market of traditional sports and e-sports will begin to merge.
"In some ways, traditional sports have a more significant revenue advantage than OWL, because the concept of home games has been institutionalized for years.Fans are used to visiting the venues frequently and paying for tickets instead of just going there once or four times a year or something. This is a brand new concept for esports, and fans don't have such a habit, which means we have a lot of consumption potential that we can tap, which is very exciting. "—The BY Aily Segal
league has now been able to gain steady revenue growth by the sale of broadcast rights. In addition to the $90 million deal with Twitch, OWL recently announced that they have sold the TV rights to AB Group in France. Details of the deal were not made public, but it could be quite profitable if the Twitch deal could be a harbinger.
Once the team enters their local market, they will be able to effectively attract their local fan base, and each team has a different approach. We have seen the strategies that the Los Angeles Valiant began to make through the "Be Valiant" series, Los Angeles Valiant CEO, Noah Whinston promises to provide a live viewing experience similar to live viewing.
"I think the most important thing is that fans should expect to see more than we have seen in esports competitions in the past, such as sitting in a chair and looking at a big screen, rather than sitting in a chair at home looking at a computer or something. I think there is no difference between watching the live e-sports event at home for a long time and watching it through the online broadcast platform. "Whinston said to us, "Our main goal is to change this pattern. Go beyond the mode of watching at your computer desk at home, creating unique activities and adding social networking factors during competitions. I don't want to share too much details about it at the moment, but I think last week's Fan Gallery Art Show is a great example of how you can experience it in reality and you won't experience it all at home. The same is true of sitting side by side with other fans watching the game, which cannot be reproduced at home. "
The efforts made by other teams in this regard - especially those owned by traditional sports practitioners like nyxl - seem to be more inclined to increase connections with traditional sports to promote their teams. For example, teams like nyxl will return to New York to make more contact with local fans and hold meetings at Citi Field, or have Saebyeolbe throw a starter for New York Mets or something, and this trend is likely to continue and expand. Although none of the efforts of these teams have been fully disclosed so far, they do have the ability to convert to The existing large space sports stadium in the e-sports arena, just like NBA and 2k cooperate.
No matter which method is used, Activision Blizzard once again doubled its promise to decide on the expansion alliance at today's first quarter financial report meeting. If the expectations made by the OWL team at present are worthy of recognition, the motivation for investors to join OWL (even if the higher admission cost is required) seems to be much higher than the past four months.
This is the reason why the C9 boss mentioned in the article made a Twitter speech, as shown in the picture.
Rod Breslau (Western reporter, peek king, the god of melon-eating people)
I talked about the differences between Valve's open circuit model and Blizzard/ActVideo Blizzard's franchise system in the esports ecosystem. Although C9's @JackEtienne and other players hope so, they won't be able to see Valve's franchise "CS:GO league" anytime soon.
" [according to Valve's president G fat ] Valve is committed to creating the most profits for each employee. They made a lot of money from steam, and they could do a lot of things (with that money)” Breslau said. “The team working for this alliance between Activision and Blizzard is very large, and Valve doesn’t even have a social team. ”
Michal Blicharz (Vice President of IEM and ESL)
The boss of the team wants such a franchise team, but for the e-sports ecosystem, this is a bad idea because he will narrow the profit chain.
Ryan Fairchild (a lawyer who likes to participate in e-sports and helps players sue)
But with games like DOTA, will this method narrow the interest chain or help the entire system be more sustainable?
Michal Blicharz
It depends on your sustainability. (Franchise System) Alliances have a big problem: they may turn off income outside the alliance itself, and according to the definition of this thing, these alliances can only provide opportunities for limited practitioners.
Jack Etienne (London boss, King of C9, air ticket booker)
You know a p. OWL's income is higher than I expected, so don't mislead the melon-eating crowd here.
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