In late November the Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS) concluded its first competitive year at Dreamhack Stockholm 2024, with Saudi organisation Team Falcons walking out victorious.
Recording a peak viewership of 159,918, via Esports Charts, the competition’s grand final attracted almost the same number of online spectators as last year’s Overwatch League playoffs (157,689). However, despite viewership being similar, the two ecosystems could not be any different.
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Launched in 2024, the Overwatch Champions Series’ defining feature is that it is an open ecosystem, a radical change from the Overwatch League’s franchised model. Teams had no guaranteed spots in the circuit and, theoretically, a group of five players had a chance to climb the ladder, get to the majors and, ultimately, qualify for the world finals.
For 2025 the OWCS will take place over three stages and international live events across North America, EMEA and Asia, with promotion and relegation events placed throughout. The first stage will begin with an open qualifier in January, followed by a regular season featuring the top 8-12 teams (depending on the region). The playoffs will qualify select teams for international events. Meanwhile, the new promotion and relegation tournament will see the lowest-performing OWCS teams defend their spots against the scene’s top up-and-coming talent.
“To me, the biggest benefit of the new [OWCS] system is getting back to the original intent of what esports is as a philosophy: that it should be all about skill.” Sean Miller, Head of Overwatch Esports, told Esports Insider.
“The OWCS has the best players, no matter where they come from: if you’re the best at Overwatch, it means you can compete on this stage in front of this crowd.”
The state of Overwatch esports was at an all-time low when the Overwatch League ended. Franchise teams lamented constant losses and frequent revenue misses. Moreover, it wasn’t guaranteed that a new circuit would rise so quickly in its place.
However, OWCS being run by an established tournament organiser in ESL FACEIT Group saw the ecosystem quickly gain traction. The shift to an open system was well received with several teams eagerly waiting to compete in Blizzard’s new FPS esports ecosystem.
When asked whether there have been any notable milestones for Overwatch 2’s new ecosystem, Miller highlighted the quick turnaround between OWL’s closure and OWCS’ creation. “Launching the OWCS in such a short amount of time, about three months after the 2023 Grand Final, was crucial to us, and doing so in a way that was high quality.
“The second achievement is the culmination of all this work: the World Finals of this past weekend,” he added.
“This was a foundation-setting year, but also somewhat of an experiment. We’ve been testing and learning, constantly iterating and being able to see all this culminate at the World Finals is a major milestone, because it’s given us a good indication that what we’re doing is working, that people are excited and that there’s still real passion.”
Many aspects of Overwatch’s esports structure changed due to the open ecosystem. Teams that made it to the finals, such as NTMR (Nightmare), were created from nothing six months before the finals, a radical shift from having the same 20 teams year over year.
“It’s all about skill, any group of people can get together and make it to the top. There are no barriers. You just have to win,” said Miller. “The open ecosystem is more integrated into the community, and our objective is to continue to refine this model building on this year’s foundations.”
Whilst speaking to Miller during the OWCS finals, the topic of sustainability was brought up. To support organisations investing in the circuit, the 2025 season will see the establishment of a new partnership programme. Successful applicants will receive a portion of the proceeds from crowdfunded in-game team packs, alongside other benefits.
“I think the team partner programme is a great way to continue to iterate on this ecosystem at large and support our teams. We’ve definitely seen interest already, and we’re positive about all the excitement we’re seeing”.
He continued: “We have a set of criteria that we’ll be assessing teams on over the coming weeks: we want the best and the biggest organisations, the ones that can really make an impact on this ecosystem and support player development through the year.”
The Head of Overwatch Esports also noted that the programme has received support from Blizzard, with artists making special in-game skins. “It’s a lot of hands and a lot of people that need to come together to make something like this work. We want to be able to see this ecosystem grow and work with the teams to do just that.”
OWCS’ plans for the future are ambitious and have one guiding principle: “Expanding our footprint,” Miller underlined.
In 2025, this will come in the form of more competition stages, more live events, more sponsors and more broadcasting. “Expanding the footprint of the ecosystem means making it more consistent and easier to follow: having fewer teams in each circuit, at least in North America for example, would also make everything more simple.
“Fans would get to know the players, see those storylines come to fruition and have more opportunities to go to live events.”
According to Miller, the key to its live event success this year has been integrating the OWCS with notable esports festival company, and ESL FACEIT Group subsidiary, DreamHack.
“The opportunity to be at DreamHack has been invaluable,” he said.
“There we found a passionate Overwatch esports fan base together with the DreamHack one, and we saw the power of that. In Dallas, we sold out and there were so many people just around the Overwatch Champion Series major areas that the second day they added 500 seats just to accommodate all of the people that we’re interested.”
However, Miller did go on to add: “We still don’t know if the best thing for us is to partner with an existing event or try to build our own, I will say that it can depend a lot on a number of factors like finding the best location.”
With the introduction of crowdfunded prize money through cosmetic bundles, a partnership programme and multiple live events around the world, the OWCS wants to be an ecosystem that’s easy to follow and easy to compete in.
“We want to make it as straightforward for the teams as possible,” Miller concluded. “Streamline the process and move quickly so that, at least one way or another, teams have some clarity and we’ll be able to move forward as we head into January. This year has been an amazing start, and I just can’t wait to see us come together and help the ecosystem grow next year.”
Despite not reaching the Overwatch League’s top viewing figures, the OWCS has completed a strong inaugural season with a lot of team participation and good viewership. Looking further into the future, with the game’s developers running six vs six tests could once again create a huge shift to the Overwatch 2 esports landscape – if these tests go further.
Nevertheless, next year’s season will have more broadcast matches, more live events and more opportunities for stakeholders involved to make investments in the scene worthwhile.
