Blizzard Entertainment has announced a minimum salary requirement of $50,000 for players who are signed to play for teams in the new Overwatch League. Two weeks ago the company announced the owners of the seven initial teams in the League. Signing players to teams will take place over the next few months.
Salary and Benefits for Full-Time Overwatch Players
In its announcement, Blizzard laid out some of the key requirements for player contracts on official Overwatch League teams:
- Minimum one year guaranteed contracts, with a one year option to extend
- Minimum annual salary of USD $50,000
- Health insurance and retirement plan provided by team
- At least 50% of any prize money the team wins goes directly to players, not owners
- Teams must provide player housing and practice facilities that meet League standards
In terms of signing contracts, it's a blank slate for teams and players in the sense that any Overwatch players are eligible to sign with any Overwatch League teams. Players who are on any existing Overwatch teams are not required to stay on, and the teams are not required to keep them.
“all 30 million+ Overwatch players (that are of majority age and otherwise eligible to play) are considered potential free agents with respect to the Overwatch League. Players associated with established Overwatch teams—even teams from organizations that have been announced as part of the Overwatch League—are not automatically signed to those rosters.”
- Teams are city-based, but players on the team may come from anywhere
- Each team has a minimum of six players and a maximum of 12 players
- Total possible team bonuses (ie, total available prize money) for season one will be $3.5 million
- Season 1’s champion team will receive a minimum $1 million prize
Seven Cities Around the World To Host Teams
Blizzard announced the first seven cities chosen to host Overwatch League teams early last November. The news may have been drowned out to some degree by some other news going on at the time, but it did not go unnoticed by fans of Overwatch and eSports in general.
The first seven teams in the Overwatch League are based in:
- Boston
- New York
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
- Miami – Orlando
- Shanghai
- Seoul
Just two weeks ago, Blizzard announced the owners of those teams, including some big names. For Boston, the owner of the new overwatch league team is also the owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft. For New York, the owner's COO of the New York Mets, Jeff Wilpon. The major sports league experience they bring suggest good things to come for the Overwatch League.
Player Signing Begins August 1
Blizzard has set a player signing window starting August 1 and ending October 30, 2017. The seven existing teams will hire a minimum of 42 and a maximum of 84 professional Overwatch League players during those three months.
The company provided teams with a "stats-based scouting report" drawn from its database of game stats to help in identifying the game's best players, including those who may not have had the opportunity yet to win a championship trophy.
The League is not limited to seven teams. New teams can still join the League, even for this season, as long as they only sign their players during the signing window.
Better go train!
Source: Overwatch League
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Watch this space it's growing! I had the opportunity to meet the international teams at the star last weekend!
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It's better to start training guys jajaja.
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I wonder how long Blizzard is going to prop up this league.
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What makes you say that? It hasn't even really started yet
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I just don't get good vibes from the eSports aspect of this game being shoved down people's throats rather than supporting organic growth of it. I've seen it happen all the time with smaller studios and it always ends in a disaster with investors pulling out real quick.
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I don't know... everything I learned about marketing says that the only good marketing i incessant marketing. Especially for the high level stuff. Now, it could be the fact that I actually like overwatch an played the beta, but I've seen more about this league than any other esports brand around, and I don't really watch or care about esports at all.
Hopefully, all this effort will help to draw in fence straddlers and traditional non sports people like me. This is definitely a cool thing to see happen even though I'm way too past my prime to get into esports as a competitor now.
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The problem is the spectator experience isn't flushed out yet. Many people enjoy playing the game, but if it wants to see success as an eSport, it needs to be easy to watch and follow what is going on which it still most definitely is not.
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Ahh... I can see that. I've never been able to watch any esport other than fighting game which keep it nice and simple
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Would be awesome to build a career around this. Need more time to practice!
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