NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) — The London Spitfire swept their rivals the Philadelphia Fusion at the Grand Finals of the inaugural season of the Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch League at the Barclays Center over the weekend.
With near-capacity crowds, and more than 300,000 watching via streaming, London won the first ever finals for the league and secured a trophy along with a $1,000,000 cash prize.
While the game is barely two years old, it has already generated a loyal following, and fans paid as much as $200 a piece for tickets to the finals. One unique aspect of the league that appears to be fostering its success is its geolocated team format, with each team representing a city, such as London or Philadelphia.
While the teams are all currently based in Los Angeles and have yet to play in their home city, league officials hope to see the teams relocate to their home city by 2020, in time for the league’s third season.
“The city-based format has really taken off in a faster and in a bigger way than I had expected,” Nate Nanzer, the league commissioner told the Washington Post, “and, frankly, like I knew it would work — for all the reasons that work in traditional sports. I just thought it would maybe take more time.”
One thing that didn’t go well for the finals was musical entertainment. DJ Khaled was tapped to perform live during the finals, but, at least according to the reaction on the internet, it went over like a lead balloon.
Many fans seemed bewildered or even bemused by the performance and video of Khaled’s antics make that reaction easy to understand. Khaled can be seen to gamely try to hype up the crowd with tried and true MC exhortations but they aren’t having it.
