The inaugural Overwatch League season has been held in its entirety at Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles, California.
Each Overwatch League team is based on a city. For example, the Shanghai Dragons are Shanghai, China’s team and London Spitfire represent London, England. This currently means very little though, as all teams are based in LA for the time being.
However, Blizzard plans to change this format in future years. The plan is to have each team play at a stadium in their respective city. Each team will play a number of home and away games throughout the season, travelling around the world to compete for the Overwatch League title.
It was originally thought that this system would be implemented ahead of season two, but Blizzard has yet to confirm that this is the case.
For the time being, nine of the 12 Overwatch League cities are based in the United States, including three in California and two in New York. London currently represents Europe, while Seoul and Shanghai represent Asia in the Overwatch League.
The organisers hope to eventually expand the league to 28 teams. This means that more Overwatch League cities are likely to join the competition in the future.
Overwatch League teams
The 12 teams taking part in the inaugural Overwatch League season are:
- Boston Uprising
- Dallas Fuel
- Florida Mayhem
- Houston Outlaws
- London Spitfire
- Los Angeles Gladiators
- Los Angeles Valiant
- New York Excelsior
- Philadelphia Fusion
- San Francisco Shock
- Seoul Dynasty
- Shanghai Dragons
Why do Overwatch League teams have a city?
The organiser hopes that this home-and-away system will help to make Overwatch League more like traditional sports competitions.
Likewise, this will also help fans to develop a connection with the team that represents their city. This is the case with traditional sports and there is no reason why it wouldn’t be the case in esports. Fans feel more loyal towards a particular team and are therefore more likely to travel to games or buy merchandise.