City League Trades Overwatch League

City League is moving away from its Overwatch League concept in a desire to transition to a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league. The grassssroot esports company originally intended to make a Overwatch league in Europe but has been forced to walk away and will focus its attentions on a new Counter-Strike: Global Offensive League.

Blizzard shut down City League’s Overwatch league, instructing it to cease all of its Overwatch league plans.

Sjaak Kuil, General Manager of City League told The Esports Observer: “We’ve started the pre-season for Overwatch because of its recent popularity. The pre-season was a blast, but unfortunately, Blizzard decided to kill the City League project for Overwatch. We tried to find a way to run City League for Overwatch within the criteria of Blizzard, but this was undoable.”

While City League attempted to continued for a while to get its Overwatch league approved with Blizzards, it was nearly impossible to get the license from Blizzard — starting with the fact that leagues aren’t allowed. City League could host tournaments but couldn’t run tournaments that related to each other. “First of all, you’re not allowed to run a league. You can host individual standalone tournaments, but these may not be connected with each other,” he explained. “Secondly, teams are not allowed to have a connection with a city. Lastly, teams are not allowed to play from a physical venue against another physical venue.”

But after a successful pre-season with Overwatch, City League felt it had enough of following to continue on its quest to create a league just with a different gaming title. Thus, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive initiative was born. The City will bring eight teams on board to take part in the Overwatch League as well as locations that participated in the inaugural season of the Overwatch League.

City League will kick of its firsts season this month. Teams will compete in their own venues for five weeks throughout Europe and will run on a group stage format before heading into playoffs at the end of the season. The City League is bringing a revolutionary style of gaming to as competitors will stay at their home venues to compete, making the future of the City League an exciting one.