Blizzard Co. is adding 8 teams to the Overwatch League this off season. According to rumor’s and estimates by business professionals the cost for one of these 8 slots was somewhere between 30 and 60 Million dollars; a good 10 to 40 million dollars more than the 20 million dollar buy in cost of the inaugural season.  Money will always be a factor in major esports. In my last post I discussed Blizzard’s negligence of their tier 2 and 3 scenes. Not only is it formatted poorly, but it is not properly funded. However, I am not an accountant. Calculating expenses is not my strong suit. That being said, I will not be discussing the monetary side of Overwatch Contender’s issues. Rather, I will be presenting my idea for a new system for the aspiring esports professional. With that in mind, and the assumption that money is not an issue in this post, I present my attempt at redefining Overwatch’s Path to Pro.

Taking a Cue From Tradition

Traditional sports such as Soccer and Baseball are known for having a clear path a player must take in order to achieve the professional level. Said paths have certain things in common such as professional tiers. For instance, Baseball has Major League Baseball, Triple A, Double A, and Class A. Any players in Triple, Double, or Class A is considered a Semi-Professional player. These players are capable of moving up and down between tiers; to the point of either dropping out of semi-pro baseball, or in rarer cases, going pro in the MLB. In a similar manner, professional soccer, such as is played in the English Premiere League, has separate leagues. The key difference between soccer and baseball in the case of the EPL is relegation and promotion. As a season ends, the three bottom teams per league are relegated to the league below. Meanwhile, in the T2 and below leagues, the top 2 teams are automatically promoted to the league higher while the teams that placed 3-7 join a playoff with the winner taking the third promotion slot.

My reconstruction of the Overwatch esports system is based, to a degree, on this relegation and promotion system. With Overwatch League being the top tier, I am proposing the addition of a Contenders Tier 2 as well as a tournament series  in order to qualify for Contenders T2. I am unsure if having OWL teams be relegated is a good idea. With that in mind, relegation and promotion will begin not in OWL but in Contenders. Just as in baseball, OWL organizations have Academy teams is Contenders that feed talent into their pro rosters. However, the difference in the system I am designing is not necessarily found at the Contenders level.

The key flaw, in my opinion, with Blizzard’s Path of Pro is its lack of accessibility. My design allows for 3 paths to Contenders: picked up off of the competitive ladder, drafted from college, or winning the Tournament Series.

Signed From the Competitive Ladder

This point is fairly straightforward. Some players are talented enough that they can be trialed and signed just based off of their performance on Overwatch’s Competitive Ladder.

College Draft

As a collegiate esports player, I am all to aware of how crucial the collegiate scene is to growing the culture of esports. In order for esports to begin to permeate modern culture and become relevant at the High School level and below, collegiate esports must grow and become relevant. The issue currently is that collegiate esports, unlike collegiate baseball or football, has no relevance to the pro scene for not only Overwatch, but also Starcraft 2 and league of Legends. My system would allow for Contenders teams to have the first rights to Collegiate players after the players had performed for their college for 1-2 years. Players would, unless signed to an organization previous to attending college, be under a 6 month suspension from professional play, including the tournament series, if they dropped out of college. Players could then enter a draft of only Contenders teams. Should a player go without being drafted, they are free to either continue playing in college, or to sign with a Tournament Series team.

Tournament Series

The Tournament Series is a system in which teams, who meet a SR(Season Rank) standard, would compete in a series of 6-8 tournaments in which placement would award each team a certain amount of points. Upon completion of the Series the teams with the top 2 cumulative points would be automatically promoted into the spots of the bottom 2 teams of Contenders T2. Meanwhile, the 3rd to last team in Contenders T2 will play in a playoff against the third place team in the Tournament Series. Said tournament series would be sponsored by Blizzard in tandem with third party sponsors. Sponsors would each provide a $10,000 prize pool and casters for their sponsored tournament. In turn, sponsors would gain exposure and be allowed to run ads during tournament play. Not only would teams be able to win money in tournaments, but would also have a shot at achieving Contenders. This would replace the much criticized Open Division.

The Last Question: Why?

I suppose you’re wondering why I redesigned the Overwatch Path to Pro. The simple answer is that I believe Blizzard has made an inaccessible path for players to achieve professional status. Beyond that, both collegiate esports and 3rd party tournament organizers have been all but shut out of any sort of relevance in the professional scene. I feel that this sort of system is flawed and negligent. Blizzard is attempting to create something with Overwatch League that is consistently relevant on a level esports has never yet achieved. By neglecting their bottom tier scenes, shutting out colleges and 3rd party organizers, and focusing only on their premiere league, Blizzard is harming not only their player base, but also the culture of esports as a whole.

~Ashley