The publisher and developer Blizzard officially signs a deal with Twitch to give the streaming company exclusive broadcast rights of the Overwatch League for two years.
With the inaugural season for the Overwatch League beginning tomorrow, fans of Blizzard‘s team-based shooter looking to tune in might be wondering exactly where they can go to watch the action unfold. Although the company’s announcement has come down to the wire, Blizzard has finally revealed that Twitch will be the exclusive third-party streaming partner of the professional eSports league for the game.
According to Blizzard’s announcement, Twitch is set to broadcast each and every Overwatch League match live over the course of the league’s first two seasons in English, French, and Korean, with this two-year deal for exclusive broadcast rights including playoffs and championship matches. While the stream will be available on Twitch, it’s important to note that fans will also be able to check out the matches on MLG.com and the MLG app for iOS and Android, Blizzard’s own website for the game’s eSports league, and on Blizzard’s smartphone app as well.
For those unaware, the historic first match for this season between the Overwatch League’s San Francisco Shock and the Los Angeles Valiant begins on Wednesday, January 10,2018 at 4:00 PM PT. Blizzard has also been kind enough to post the day’s full schedule, which can be seen right here. Other opening day matches will include the Shanghai Dragons against the Los Angeles Gladiators, with the Dallas Fuel then taking on the Seoul Dynasty.
All things considered, while plenty of other games like DOTA 2 and League of Legends already have a commanding presence in the eSports scene, it’s the Overwatch League that has the most potential to bring these kinds of professional gaming competitions to mainstream audiences unaware of their existence. After all, Overwatch already has an existing player count of more than 35 million worldwide, and with the game’s third-party stream going to Twitch’s viewership–which boasts an audience bigger than HBO or Netflix–there’s definitely some major potential for the team-based shooter to push eSports toward universal appeal.
Overwatch is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
