Fans cheer at the inaugural Opening Day of the Overwatch League in January. (Noah Smith for The Washington Post)
The rise of competitive video gaming has received even more fuel: ESPN, Disney and ABC are set to broadcast matches of the new professional league based around the game “Overwatch.”
ESPN, Disney XD and the game’s publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, made the announcement Wednesday in a joint release. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, although it at least will extend into the league’s 2019 season as well.
The broadcasts will begin Wednesday night with coverage of the opening rounds of the league’s inaugural playoffs on ESPN3 and Disney XD. The opening night of the Overwatch League Grand Finals from sold-out Barclays Center in New York will be shown on ESPN at 7 p.m. EDT on Friday, July 27. The concluding night of the finals will be shown live on ESPN3 and Disney XD the following evening, with a rebroadcast airing on ESPN2 on Saturday, July 28 at 9 p.m. EDT.
ABC will air a recap show featuring highlights from the finals Sunday, July 29.
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“We’re excited to be working with ESPN and DisneyXD to bring Overwatch esports to an even wider audience,” Pete Vlastelica, president and chief executive of Activision Blizzard Esports Leagues, said in the release. “We’ve seen incredible passion and support from fans during the inaugural season of the Overwatch League, and we’re looking forward to capping it off for them with an epic Grand Finals at Barclays Center later this month.”
The announcement continues a wave of growth for the burgeoning esports industry. Financial services company Goldman Sachs just issued a comprehensive report predicting revenue from esports will approach $3 billion by 2022. More and more games are embracing competitive gaming and the formation of esports leagues.
The Overwatch League was one of the newest, launching in January after securing franchise investments from prominent owners in the traditional sports world like Robert and Jonathan Kraft of the New England Patriots, Stan Kroenke of the Los Angeles Rams and Steve Kaplan of the Memphis Grizzlies, among others. The buy-in for each of the first 12 franchises — which span the globe from Shanghai to Seoul, Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, Boston and London — was $20 million.
In April, the NBA held a full-on draft to launch its own esports league around the popular NBA 2K series. Major League Soccer announced plans for a league based around the EA Sports-produced FIFA series. The NHL also recently signaled its desire to ramp up its efforts around esports to “build more interest and a greater connectivity to our game through the hockey video game,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said in a recent interview with ESPN.
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