Overwatch League – Twitch spends 2 trillion to win the right to stream in 2 years

Twitch and Overwatch League just signed the largest value contract in the industry eSports calculated up to the present time. According to Sports Business Journal, this contract has a minimum value of 90 million USD, equivalent to more than 2 trillion VND.
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If you don’t know, Overwatch League is a ‘city by city’ tournament designed to standardize Overwatch’s esports scene. Blizzard believes that Overwatch will explode in the coming years and has ambitions to create a professional league similar to actual sports. The Overwatch League’s ‘pre-season’ kicked off last December, while the official season will begin today and run until June 16.
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Logos of 12 teams participating in Overwatch League season 17-18

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After the qualifiers are over, the post-season matches to prepare for the finals will take place from July 11 to 22. The finals are scheduled for July 26-28. After that, the players will participate in the All-Star Weekend (similar to the NBA system).
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Team Shanghai Dragons character-specific costumes​

Thus, with this contract, Twitch will have the right to stream all Overwatch League qualifying and post-season matches. In addition, Twitch will also be allowed to develop its own reward system and viewer items (related to the Overwatch League, of course). Half of the qualifying matches will be shown on Major League Gaming, a platfrorm owned by Activision-Blizzard, the publisher of Overwatch. Of course, these matches are still shared via Twitch. Thus, starting today, audiences around the world (except China), will be able to watch Overwatch League matches via Twitch.
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The value of this contract surpasses the 7-year $300 million contract (equivalent to about $42 million per year) that Riot’s League of Legends signed with BAMTech in 2016.

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