Tech giants Intel and HP announced Thursday a major financial and marketing investment that will span multiple years in Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch League, a new esports league aiming to mirror the structure of traditional sports by placing teams in large cities.
The scale of these investments, which make HP the official device and display provider of the league through its OMEN line of gaming PCs and Intel the official chip provider with its Intel Core i7 processors, represent a record for the esports industry as a whole, said Mike Sepso, the co-founder of Major League Gaming and the current vice president of esports at Activision Blizzard.
“Both of these deals represent, in my experience, the largest consumer brand sponsorship of any esports property,” Sepso said in an interview with SportTechie, though financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. “They’re significantly bigger.”
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The Overwatch League has attracted veterans from both esports and traditional sports, including owners and key executives of professional sports teams, such as New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, New York Mets Chief Operating Officer Jeff Wilpon, Los Angeles Rams and Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke, and Comcast Spectacor CEO Dave Scott, who oversees the Philadelphia Flyers.
Intel and HP have helped to propel the esports industry through financial and resource investments in the past, however Sepso said the size and scale of their investments in Overwatch represent the kinds of sponsorship deals that may soon become the norm of esports leagues.
“This is a huge kind of new endeavor for both companies and it’s very validating for the industry,” he said. “There’s been a lot of excitement and attention on esports the last few years in terms of how big the audience is, and with our launch of the Overwatch League and its inclusion of traditional sports owners. But I think the last major validation point for esports as a commercial success is definitely going to be the successful entrance of big consumer brands to help support the financial ecosystem just as they do in traditional sports.”
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Like conventional sports, the Overwatch League will be based around team hubs in major cities around the world, which are meant to foster fan engagement and drive local ticket, concessions and merchandise sales. The league will also have a commissioner and offer team support and revenue-sharing agreements.
Blizzard believes this league represents a unique opportunity for sponsors, which can more easily take advantage of locally-based fan bases that will be built around particular teams, especially among the key millennial demographic, which overwhelmingly rules the fan base.
The inaugural season of the 12-team league will kickoff with its first regular season match on Jan. 10 and run through June, with playoffs and finals scheduled for July. Preseason will begin Dec. 6.
All Overwatch League preseason and regular-season games for 2018 will take place at Blizzard Arena Los Angeles, a state-of- the-art venue in Burbank, Calif. that has been custom-renovated for Blizzard Entertainment esports events.
The HP and Intel investments are “a great indication of what’s to come,” Sepso said. “They’re supporting the launch and build-out of the league with us.”