Andbox has, for the past few days, been teasing a major new drop that was revealed to be a rebranding. The parent company of Andbox is being rebranded to NYXL, which makes both the CDL team of the Subliners (Call of Duty), NYFU (Valorant), and the Excelsior now under NYXL. The community has seen many rebrands in the past, but what is most interesting is the impact it is going to have on the Overwatch League and its possible implications for the future.
When the Overwatch League was announced there were a few common themes. Each team had an association with a location. That location was usually at the beginning of the team name: The Shanghai Dragons, the Boston Uprising, or the Seoul Dynasty. Though some large gaming groups such as Gen.G, NRG, Misfits, etc bought into the league their brands were glaringly missing from any of the team names. With NYXL’s rebranding, this brings in a whole new set of variables.
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The Overwatch League team that was owned by Andbox has had a lot of success when it comes to branding. They are known to most of the community as NYXL rather than the Excelsior. With Andbox now changing their branding to the NYXL, they will be the first team in the Overwatch League to have their organization’s name represented within their team. The organization has named their social media to reflect this. But with the community already associating the New York Excelsior with NYXL, what the organization wants is already ingrained in the minds of Overwatch League fans.
What does this mean in the future? When looking at it from a marketing perspective, to have the organization’s brand associated with the million-dollar investment league team makes sense. It will not only allow fans who are fans of the organization to identify the team that their team owns as well as bring new fans into the fold who are solely fans of the Overwatch League team. The sister league of the Call of Duty has seen these changes as well. There is the Atlanta Faze, Optic, and LA Thieves that all have their organization name somehow woven into the team name.
Would it be worth it for other teams to push for their organizational branding to be included in the names of the teams? So far in the Overwatch League, there have not been any name changes like the Huntsmen of the CDL. The community has seen color changes, management changes, team identity changes, but no name changes. Would a Gen.G Seoul or Florida Misfits make sense for these organizations?
The NYXL is making the first move when it comes to branding and name association. Whether or not other organizations push to re-name their teams to reflect the parent organization’s brand is to be seen. With this step forward, it will be interesting to see what is the next team to step up to the bat to integrate the parent organization into the Overwatch League team’s name.
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