On Thursday Blizzard announced the addition of two new teams to the still forming Overwatch League. One is another Los Angeles based team, while the other is based in London, the first European team announced. This brings the current total of teams up to nine.
With the addition of the first European team we believe that Paris and Berlin are next in line.
Overwatch League: Paris and Berlin
Paris and Berlin are next. Why? Well just look at the current list of cities with their owners:
- Boston, USA: Robert Kraft, chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group and the New England Patriots
- New York City, USA: Jeff Wilpon, co-founder and partner at Sterling.VC and COO of the New York Mets
- San Francisco, USA: Andy Miller, chairman and founder of NRG Esports
- Miami and Orlando, USA: Ben Spoont, CEO and cofounder of Misfits Gaming
- Los Angles, USA has two teams:
- Noah Winston, CEO of Immortals
- Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, owners of the LA Rams and Denver Nuggets
- London, UK: Cloud9
- Shanghai, China: NetEase
- Seoul, South Korea: Kevin Chou, co-founder of Kabam
Notice how all of the cities listed are metropolitan areas, headquarters of businesses and are attractive places to live.
Paris is one of France’s largest cities, as well as one of the wealthiest. According to the official French government website, Paris was home to “twenty-nine of the world’s 500 largest companies.” That claim was based on a list compiled by Global Fortune 500 in 2016. Not only is Paris a great place to do business, but it’s also one of the most popular places to live because of its vibrant culture. In short, the city of lights is too bright to pass up.
Berlin is the largest city in Germany, though it can’t boast the same wealth as Paris. Yet, according to a Savills report Berlin boasts a growing TMT (Technology, Media and Telecom) business sector. This makes Berlin an attractive location for an esports team because of all the tech companies that would pay for advertising.
We expect Blizzard to be announcing Overwatch League teams for these cities in the near future. Not only because of the business benefits, but also because it allows them to expand their European market.
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Featured Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
