Blizzard to pay Pro Overwatch players a salary and benefits!?!?!
I used to be a huge fan of professional sports here in America but over the last 3 years I have stopped watching and supporting any of them as it just seems to be a corrupted system for those who have corporate money. In America, to be able to watch an professional regular season NFL game in person and take a family will easily cost more than a $1,000 once you factor the tickets, parking, concessions, and other side costs of attending a game (the Super Bowl can be $10,000 plus if your lucky for crap seats) and our salaries are not going up here if anything they are decreasing just merely due to inflation.
To me, this is unsustainable and the end will come soon to professional sports as we know it in America, especially now with studies coming out about the impacts of CTE link. At first my sons mom was against my son playing American football but I wanted him to play since he is a big kid to now my opinion is no way in hell will I allow him to play since overzealous coaches and admirations will not care about the kids health but overall game attendance.
https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/media/cinematic-trailer
Now I see that Blizzard is starting to pay their pro players, as well as benefits, and it made me realize that eSports will eventually come up and take a lot of the professional sports fire and passion soon but without the fear of concussion (maybe a crypto will rise to pay gamers and if so, I am in big time). Yes, a gamer can be affected by the constant sitting and staring at a TV but that can be remedied with a balance of fitness, exercise, and diet but you can’t do that with a concussion.
Either way, I just wanted to put out there a perspective of a former hardcore American football sports fan but father of a 14 year boy who I want to have his sons energy be put in a productive and structured way but realize that the my passion of football may no longer be the way. Times are always changing thus we must adapt to times and not be afraid of it.
Thanks for the different angle on the particular topic of the base salary for Overwatch League players. I am an Overwatch esports writer and I wrote an article highlighting the details of the new player contact when it first dropped. I kind of expected your article to cover the same info. Instead you have us an interesting perspective to think about.
I agree with you on several points. I was a very high level baseball player and I always thought that my son would be a baseball player too. Once we had our son naturally I talked about this with my wife and she was against it for many different reasons. Some similar to your point of view. At first I struggled with this but as time has gone by, esports has become a thing, and my entire family has become esports fans we have embraced or kids desire to play games with the idea of it becoming a career in some way. I am excited to see esports grow and I am one who actually thinks esports is the future of professional sports. Overwatch League is just the beginning and happy to be apart of the early growth as this thing kicks off later this year.
Nice chatting with you. All the best!
@dwelling
Very awesome to meet you! I have started to follow you due to your subject matter expertise. My boy is a gamer (i have posted some of his youtube video's playing COD black ops 3 and other COD games). I always felt i was born a decade or two too late as i was a gamer first before i played football myself in high school for 2 years.
The exciting part of esports is that it encompasses so many games and the fact that a company like Blizzard realizes the value of giving these kids (and maybe older adults too???) a steady pay and benefits so they can focus on being the best they can is just awesome and hopefully just the beginning. Soon there will be regular leagues but maybe the focus changes or it stays the same with constant updates.
Once the public realizes this is the future, we will see a huge change in coverage (not just twitch, youtube, or wherever you can stream games) and the acceptance of gaming as being a part of our normal life. Either way, thanks for reading my post exciting times ahead for all(even with my grammatical errors, math was always my best subject...).