It’s really cool that Overwatch is an esport now and it’s enjoyable to watch pros play but I couldn’t watch past one night of it for two reasons.
1.) My city doesn’t have a team, which yeah okay it’s just starting out so there might not be one at the moment that’s fine but then Los Angeles has two teams? Second team could’ve went to a different location. This is only a small thing that annoys me and I could overlook this in hopes that maybe there will be more teams in the future but I can’t do that because;
2.) From what I know, most of the teams aren’t made up of people who are actually from the place it’s representing. To me, Overwatch league should be the best players from that region going against the best from other regions, THAT would be interesting. Instead its players from Korea who don’t actually live where the team is from or at least didn’t live there prior to OWL most likely, which I wouldn’t really mind if these teams weren’t supposed to be representations of the best from that area and they were just teams, instead of Dallas Fuel it was just Team Fuel, that would make more sense for the way the League is at the moment. Then I would look at the teams and say “Whoever my favourite player is I’ll root for that persons team.” Kind of like idols.
This is why the Overwatch World Cup was so cool to many of us, it’s because you can look at the team that’s representing your country and be prideful because that’s the best from where you live! There’s a sense of unity and it feels personal. With OWL you don’t get that feeling because those are not that area’s best because they aren’t even from that area so there’s no connection and it’s not an accurate representation. So if they made a team for my city and they put in a bunch of people not from there then how is it a representation of my city’s best? It’s like putting a bunch of Americans on a team that’s supposed to be representing England, it’s redundant. It just feels disingenuous to me and some of the other people I’ve talked to this about as well.
There’s a bunch of Korean players who deserve to be in OWL but only one team, why don’t you make more teams in Korea because I’m sure Seoul isn’t the only place in South Korea and I’m sure all those players aren’t all from Seoul either. Also, make more teams outside of America as well, don’t give America a bunch of teams while other places only have one team or none at all while you’re over here giving Los Angeles two teams.
I feel like I probably haven’t worded this as effectively as I could but I’d really like to know other people’s opinions and if I could clear up some things. I don’t know if this has been brought up before or if I made any factual errors so please let me know if I have thank you 
5 Likes
The same applies to most rl sports. Rarely is anyone from the city they represent.
11 Likes
i think the teams are based on the traits they share like if that teams players are aggressive docile good at defending good at attacking
1 Like
That makes sense, but I think in that case they should just have team names without a location attached to the name
3 Likes
That’s how traditional sports teams are. Welcome to real life
5 Likes
Every real life sport is based in a city from which very few if any of the players are actually from. Being city based gives people someone to root for. It shouldn’t matter where the players are from.
That’s the thing that doesn’t make sense to me I don’t see the point in that, I’m sure it has something to do with how good the players are or if they work well with the rest of the team but I’m sure there’s a lot of people in those areas who play really well and it’d give them more of a chance to get into professional sports in my opinion
It’s mostly about getting the best players, which usually would come from S. Korea, getting players from the representing state is not important if the best there is mediocre to the rest of the world
2 Likes
Yeah, finding out that a lot of the “american” teams were actually rebranded korean teams killed my team spirit.
I have no problem with koreans in the overwatch leauge, but have them represent their own hometowns instead of denying players who are actually from Texas, Los Angeles, etc. the chance to represent their hometown.
4 Likes
Yep. Low IQ fans still love to cheer for their “”““home team””“” even though half the players on the team have never spent a single year in that city.
4 Likes
At least the ‘real life sports’ draw players from around the city (that they’re representing) area, instead of so far away it’s in an entirely different country.
2 Likes
That just seems so bland to me but I understand where you’re coming from. But if they’re in the same skill tier then they all have a fighting chance I’m sure it wouldn’t be come down to them being mediocre
1 Like
Korea is just as much not New York as Wyoming is.
These conversations usually devolve into a sort of toxic nationalism but the bottom line remains: the best players will be picked up by city based teams. If the best players happen to be Korean, or French or American, then that’s who’s going to play.
You think anyone in Barcelona sits around thinking “man Messi is good but hes Argentinian. Aren’t there any good Barcelonians?”
2 Likes
There’s nothing wrong with this I just don’t think it should be city based teams if this is what they’re going with.
Wasn’t the process a buy in thing, meaning whoever owns the team can do whatever they want. The reason why they tied it to a city was probably something along the lines of making it more like “physical” sports and also to guarantee some money from the locals in terms of merch sales.
(I’m speaking from a position completely out of the know thought)
Pretty much no sports above college level are represented by locals. These are buisiness operations and are obliged to field the best talent available. As it stands, most of the talent is Korean + International. If a team decided to only field Americans (ie Dallas players only) they would receive a spanking well beyond the Dragons worst nightmares… Also Seoul would end up being like a national sports team playing in a league of under 16s =_=“
As for why not more than one Seoul team, probably for a “looks” thing. Imagine looking at the ladder and seeing:
Seoul Dynasty
Suwon Southers
Changwon 69ers
all the time. Although New York is a Korean team they at least New York in their name XD Basically I think it would hurt it’s popularity if it was set in America and was basically a stomping grounds Korean teams.
2 Likes
Ahh okay as a business thing it makes sense but it’s still really disheartening and uninteresting and I still think it shouldnt include cities in the names if that’s their approach for reasons i mentioned earlier, after the initial interest of “oh that’s my city” and then quickly realizing that it’s not and it’s an entirely different country all together that’s when I and many others lose interest. I’ll just wait for Overwatch World Cup if I wanna feel any type of excitement or interest while watching competitive Overwatch
3 Likes
Yeh unfortunately all things are buisiness things. There just isn’t the depth of talent available in anyone given city that could make a team viable at the international level. Kinda like how physical sports don’t really have local people representing them. They simply move their after being drafted as a convenience thing.
When’s the next World Cup…? Hope your not waiting too long XD
1 Like
That would be during Blizzcon in November so quite a ways to go lolol
That’s not how traditional sports leagues started however. OWL, being a new thing, could have opted to go back to having teams with players from that city. Though it would have been more challenging and impractical, so honestly they shouldn’t have bothered with associating teams with cities
2 Likes
I completely agree, at least it would get everyone loyal to those teams and I think it would make for very interesting matches in general, much more interesting than the ones I’ve watched anyways