From $20 Million Franchises to an Open Circuit: The Rise and Reset of Overwatch Esports

In January 2018, a converted television studio in Burbank, California, opened its doors to the most ambitious experiment esports had seen. Twelve teams named after cities, from Seoul to London to Los Angeles, had each paid a reported $20 million for a permanent place in the Overwatch League (OWL). The idea was to build esports the way American sports are built: home cities, home crowds, and franchises that would grow in value for decades.

Six seasons later, the league was gone. In January 2024, Blizzard replaced it with the Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS), an open circuit run with partners, and that system is now three seasons old. With the OWCS Asia Finals at G-STAR in Busan from November 20 to 22 and the World Finals in China in December, it is a good moment to look back at one of esports' great booms and the reset that followed.

A league built like a sport

Blizzard announced the Overwatch League at BlizzCon in November 2016, months after the game's launch. The pitch was bold: city-based teams, split into East and West regions, with owners buying permanent places rather than qualifying each year. Some came from esports, others from traditional sport.

Blizzard converted Studio 1 at The Burbank Studios into the Blizzard Arena in September 2017, and the inaugural season began there in 2018. Big media deals followed. Twitch signed a two-year streaming deal reported at $90 million, and in July 2018 ESPN and Disney agreed to put the playoffs and some regular-season matches on US television.

The first Grand Final, in July 2018, was won by the London Spitfire, a team built on Korean talent, which beat the Philadelphia Fusion 2-0. Korean players were everywhere in the OWL, and Gen.G's Seoul Dynasty carried the Korean flag directly.

Expansion and the Shock dynasty

In 2019 the league grew to 20 teams, with expansion fees estimated at $35 million to $60 million. The San Francisco Shock became its first dynasty, sweeping the Vancouver Titans 4-0 in the 2019 Grand Final and beating Seoul Dynasty 4-2 in 2020, the closest Seoul came to a title.

2020 was meant to be the year of home cities, with teams hosting "homestand" events around the world. The pandemic ended that within weeks, and the league moved online and played in regional groups. Still, early that year YouTube signed a three-year exclusive streaming deal reported at $160 million.

The champions kept changing:

• 2021: Shanghai Dragons swept the Atlanta Reign 4-0
• 2022: Dallas Fuel beat the San Francisco Shock 4-3
• 2023: Florida Mayhem swept the Houston Outlaws 4-0

The collapse

Behind the scenes, the economics were under strain. The 2022 launch of Overwatch 2 brought new attention, but the big franchise fees, the cost of running city teams and the shift online during the pandemic weighed on owners. In January 2023, teams began collective bargaining with Blizzard, and the league agreed to waive outstanding franchise fees.

In July 2023, Activision Blizzard said that teams leaving under an updated agreement would each receive a $6 million termination fee, about $114 million in total. In November 2023, a two-thirds majority of the franchise owners voted to leave. On January 23, 2024, Blizzard confirmed the Overwatch League had folded.

WGC's take: the OWL proved that a single-game franchise league can draw big media money, and also that permanent, expensive slots become a burden as soon as viewing or sponsorship falls short of the plan. Every publisher running a partner league today, from Riot's LCK and VCT to Activision's Call of Duty League, has had to answer the same question about who carries that risk.

The Champions Series

The OWCS launched in January 2024 with two partners: ESL FACEIT Group for North America and EMEA, and WDG for Asia, which was divided into Korea, Japan and Pacific. China joined in 2025. Instead of permanent slots, teams qualify through open competition, and since 2026 there is promotion and relegation in all regions, with a partnership programme that gives a few top clubs support.

Korea quickly became the centre of gravity again. At the first OWCS World Finals, held at DreamHack Stockholm in 2024, Team Falcons, with a roster built around Korean veterans and former OWL champions, beat Crazy Raccoon 4-1 in an all-Asia-region final. In 2025, also in Stockholm, Saudi Arabia's Twisted Minds beat Al Qadsiah 4-1, with Crazy Raccoon third.

2026: Korea's year

The 2026 season has three splits and three international events, and Korean-based rosters dominated all of them.

• Champions Clash, Tokyo (May 22-24): Crazy Raccoon came back from 2-3 down to beat Twisted Minds 4-3 in the final.
• Midseason Championship, Paris (July 29 to August 2): held as part of the Esports World Cup. ZETA DIVISION, the Japanese club with an all-Korean roster, beat Twisted Minds 4-2. Its player Kim "shu" Jin-seo was MVP, and T1 finished third.
• Overwatch World Cup (September): a national-team event revived after a two-year gap. South Korea won its fourth title, beating Saudi Arabia 4-1 at BlizzCon in Anaheim. Our Overwatch World Cup report has the story.

That pattern, Korean players moving between clubs from Japan, Saudi Arabia and Korea itself, is the clearest sign of how the post-OWL scene works: the talent pool stays Korean, while the money and the badges come from all over the world.

The season ends with the OWCS Asia Finals at the BEXCO Auditorium in Busan, held alongside G-STAR from November 20 to 22, where four places at the World Finals in December are at stake. We preview that in our OWCS finals guide.

By the numbers

• $20 million: the reported OWL franchise fee in 2018
• 12 teams in 2018, 20 from 2019
• $90 million (Twitch, 2018) and $160 million (YouTube, 2020): the league's reported streaming deals
• $6 million: the termination fee per team in 2023, about $114 million in total
• 2: OWL titles for the San Francisco Shock, the most of any team
• 401,000: peak viewers for the 2026 Overwatch World Cup final, a record for the event

What to watch

The OWCS will not repeat the OWL's spending, and that is probably healthy. The new circuit is smaller, but it is open, it has a clear international calendar, and its teams are no longer tied to American cities that rarely saw home games. The players also have more places to play: the Esports World Cup, Blizzard's own events and the national-team World Cup.

For Korean fans, the next fortnight is the time to pay attention. The Asia Finals in Busan feature T1, ZETA DIVISION, Crazy Raccoon and Team Falcons among the contenders, and the winners head to the World Finals in China. If you have never watched a pro match, start with the 2026 World Cup final: five maps, a home-grown Korean roster and a record crowd online. Overwatch is free to play on Steam, Battle.net and consoles.