Very recently, the Overwatch League (OWL, funny), announced its first committed teams for the inaugural season starting this winter. The list includes very prominent members of the sport and international communities: Robert Kraft (New England Patriots Owner), Jeff Wilpon (New York Mets), and others. But for me, a series of locations overshadow these incredible names pledging to field an Overwatch team by the end of 2017. “New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami-Orlando,” and other prominent cities stand out in the article to indicate a distinct change in the way that companies will conduct e-sports.
“Geolocation” — the act of identifying a person, organization, team, etc. by their location — represents a “game changer” in the world of e-sports. Nearly every traditional sports team on the face of the planet operates in, and calls a certain town, city, state, etc. its home: “The Boston Bruins,” “Real Madrid,” “The Los Angeles Rams.” In contrast, many e-sport organizations, like League of Legends teams, all live in the same city right now (Los Angeles for North America). Other e-sports organizations are relatively geolocated, such as European CS:GO teams, but they only play in hosted tournaments. Even these “nationalized” CS:GO teams have no true “home” arena or venue that other teams visit to compete and visa versa.
The association of e-sports organizations with specific locations is critical for the growth of the “genre.” It’s hard to fall in love with a League of Legends team when they all play 3,000 miles away; it’s easy to fall in love with the local baseball team as they try to break their curse in your proverbial backyard. Despite the long distances, I do love some e-sports organizations within and without the U.S. but I am looking forward to the day when I see Boston’s Rocket League Team destroy New York’s… just like when I was a kid:
E-sport fans (including myself) get most hyped when their region, however large or small, gets to challenge the others, whether at home or away. So why don’t we institute the paradigm of geolocated e-sport teams? Of course, there are logistic, branding, and other monumental challenges, but creating your “Home Team” would change everything. That can bring the excitement to every regular season game. That can root rivalries in soil. That can draw crowds to the local arena, pub, and neighborhood hang-out to watch the game.
I could go on for hours about the local future of e-sport, but I’ll restrain myself. I think for most part, a visceral intuition surrounds supporting the “home team.” If I wrote a long article I’d be wasting time I could spend cheering.