This past weekend, the Toronto Defiant arrived in their home city of Toronto. They were met by hundreds of excited fans, braving the cold for the opportunity to meet Toronto’s Overwatch League representatives. Fans lined up outside EB Games for the promoted meet and greet ahead of their February 15 opening matchup versus the Houston Outlaws.
The team was accompanied by General Manager Jaesun “Jae” Won, Head Coach Beom-joon “Bishop” Lee and OverActive Media President and CEO, Chris Overholt. Both Bishop and Chris had available time to answer a few questions for The Game Haus.
How is the team reacting to their arrival in Toronto? Obviously they’ve gotten comfortable in L.A. just fine, but how has everything been up here for your visit?
Bishop: “As soon as we got off the plane, everyone started to scream, ‘It’s so cold!’. I remember the players saying the snow felt different just because [of] stepping on it and how soft it was. They’re really enjoying it. We’ve obviously been around doing photoshoots. We’ve been to the Distillery, we’ve also been to the CN Tower and we’ve tried to go to cool places for the photoshoots and whatnot and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. The highlight is obviously today, meeting all the fans and everything. They’re in a great mood.”
LA ✈️ TOR. WE'RE HERE.#RiseTogether #OWL2019 pic.twitter.com/ujIvPl79Fz
— Toronto Defiant (@TorontoDefiant) February 1, 2019
How has everything been going for them since they’ve been in the States? Has the practice schedule slowed down compared to the Bootcamp, or increased with opening day looming?
Bishop: “Practice is definitely becoming more intense. Once we go back, we’ll be going at it even harder. Instead of doing two scrims, we’ll be doing a three scrim schedule. This was an honest discussion between the coaching staff and the players. They agree, they want it, they want to show up hard. Everyone’s happy that we’re low in the power ranks, because we want to show up as underdogs and surprise everyone. Everyone has their own personal motivation to really show up and dominate Houston.”
How involved have you been with the team since their arrival to the States?
Chris: “Well, I’m involved everyday, we all are. What I’m really pleased with is the progress we’re making in just piecing our team together [as well as] just how much they like each other. Team chemistry in any sport is so important and it’s very clear to me that they’ve done a nice job fitting personalities with skill. […]The guys have been having fun and that’s going to pay in spades as we go along. On the business side, we’re rolling really well. We’ve had lots to do in the first few months here, we raised; frankly, quite a bit of money and have had great support from the investment community, so that’s been really satisfying and quite rewarding. We’re really now starting to get into bigger conversations about marketing partnerships and strategic partnerships that we can find alignment in so that we can continue to market the team in this way and do big things.”
This is the second successful event in Toronto for you guys already. What’s going on in the future? With the looming potential of geolocation for the Overwatch League, do you have more in store the Toronto faithful in the future?
Chris: “We’re looking for the right opportunities. With the team a distance in L.A. this year, it’s going to be… You want to do as much as you can connecting the fans to the team, and so we’ve got to find the natural breaks in the season to do that. Based on the stage breaks I think those are the logical places to look for those intersects. Off course you only get one home opener, even if it’s not going to be in this city. Actually, I guess the way to think of it is we’re going to have two.
We’re going to have our inaugural opener in the context of our first season in the league, and then hopefully this time next year, we’re gonna be getting ready for our [home] opener and that’ll be exciting. I think what you should look for is, we’ll try to natural opportunities or natural energy points in the season, and every opportunity we’ll get, we’ll be trying to bring the players to their fans because that emotional connection is really what drives any sports team.”
You’re obviously trying to resonate with your home fans, as well as fans across the world. With Splyce being based in Rochester, NY, how are you planning on reaching out to the fans in Western New York?
Chris: “We’ve actually had some outreach recently from marketing partners that are asking the same questions and are interested in getting involved with us in that way. We’re definitely going to have to look to that. We’ve had one marketing partner in particular just come to us this week, and express interest in creating an activation in Western New York, so we’re going to be looking at that.
You’re right, we’ve got a lot of masters here. It’s a Toronto team that speaks to a [Home Marketing Area] between Kingston, London Ontario, and around the lake into Western New York. As we go through all of this, while [home] is Toronto for the Toronto Defiant, the fan base spans the province and into the U.S. so we’ll have to be mindful of that and we’ll try to create those opportunities for everyone.”
Featured Image Courtesy of Toronto Defiant
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