The Overwatch League broadcast team is one of the most essential parts of the League. Besides the players and the backstage crew to make sure the stream goes well, the broadcast team makes the viewers at home feel involved as though they are actually in the arena. With the OWL 2020 season around the corner, things have been changed withing the broadcast team. Let’s see what they have in store for the upcoming season.
What Do We Know So Far?
So far, we have ten casters on the broadcast team. In the 2020 Season former Houston Outlaws player Jake ”Jake” Lyon and Andrew “ZP” Rush will be new on the team. The list down below gives you a bit more information on who will be there for the 2020 season.
Wolf ”Wolf” Schröder and Seth ”Achilios” King
Wolf and Achilios both have experience with casting in Korea as they have cast Overwatch APEX and the Contenders Overwatch Korea in the past before casting the Overwatch League. Wolf has been casting since 2011 focusing on StarCraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm before Overwatch.
Achilios has been casting since 2016 and been casting PUBG, League of Legends and Overwatch APEX in Korea before he came to the Overwatch League.
Brennon ”Bren” Hook and Josh ”Sideshow” Wilkinson
Bren started his casting career in 2016 by commentating for his Team Fortress 2 team’s scrims. Later Bren was picked up to cast for the TF2 Grand Finals. Bren also has cast for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2. Bren started casting for Overwatch on the Overwatch Contenders 2017 Season 1: Europe.
Sideshow previously was a commentator, analyst and a player for Team Fortress 2 with teamfortresstv. Sideshow’s first Overwatch broadcast was Overwatch PIT Championship – Europe Season 1.
Jacob ”Jake” Lyon and Andrew “ZP” Rush
ZP was one of the original Overwatch Casters and Analysts, as early as 2015 together with Hexagrams where the duo quickly made a name themselves as the games first major endemic casting duo. ZP’s first Blizzard Overwatch casting was for the Overwatch World Cup 2016.
Jake retired as a pro-player in December 2019 and made a career switch to casting games. Jake mentioned before he wanted to retire as a pro-player and since he already cast the Overwatch World Cup in 2018 and 2019. Jake and ZP would make the new pair within the broadcast team, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the two of them pair up for the 2020 season.
Auguste ”Semmler” Massonnat and Robert ”Hexagrams” Kirkbirde
Semmler was a former CS:GO caster, he was hired by Blizzard in 2017 to start casting for the 2018 Overwatch
League Season.
Hexagrams was one of the original Overwatch Casters and Analysts, broadcasting games since the Closed Beta in 2015 together with ZP. Hexagrams first casting job for Blizzard was for the Overwatch Contenders 2017 Season Zero: NA Q1.
Mitch ”Uber” Leslie and Matt ”Mr X” Morello
Before Uber started casting for the OWL he worked on games such as World of Tanks, League of Legends and CS:GO. Uber’s first official Blizzard Overwatch cast was during the Overwatch World Cup 2016. He has been with the OWL since the Inaugural Preseason.
Mr X has been casting for Call of Duty World League before he started casting for the OWL. Overall he has ten years of casting experience under his belt. Mr X has been a commentator for more bigger western Overwatch events.
Theory: Who is Going to Cast with Who and Where?
ZP & Jake – USA & Canada
Semmler & Hex – USA & Canada
Uber & MrX – USA & Canada
Wolf & Achilios – Korea & China
Brenn & Sideshow – London & Paris
The USA/Canada has, by far, the most Homestands so it would make sense to have the most casters there.
Though Korea and China together also have a lot of Homestands it wouldn’t be surprising to see any of them joining Wolf and Achilios to help them. Both Wolf and Achilios have a lot of experience with casting Korea. So it would be the logical reason to have them cast in Korea and possibly also in China. London and Paris have 5 combined weekends as of now, this would. Unless they reel in Harry ”Legday” Pollitt and another caster to share the Homestands with Brenn Sideshow. Let’s see what the casters will bring to the 2020 season!
Who Quit the Broadcast Team?
Monte ”Cristopher” Mykles announced on December 31, 2019, that he is not returning to the OWL for the 2020 season due to not renewing his contract with the OWL.
Chris ”Puckett” Puckett announced he will be leaving the OWL as a desk host, his partner got a promotion causing them to move back to New York City making him unavailable to host the 2020 season.
Erik ”DoA” Lonnquist also has announced he will be leaving the OWL, his contract also ended on December 31, 2019.
As of now, they are all ”LFT.” The OWL community wishes them all the best on their quest to new adventures.
Follow daekukii on Twitter: @daekukii for more OWL content!
Follow us on Twitter: TGH Esports and Facebook: The Game Haus for more sports and esports coverage.
Want to show off how much you like TGH? Check out our merch shop here!
“From Our Haus to Yours”