By Feature Writer James Kozachuk and Manny Anekal

Back on November 4, 2016, Activision Blizzard made a huge splash by announcing a massive upcoming league around their latest hit, Overwatch.

It drew considerable press and excitement with a flurry of consistent of rumors around price points, endemic vs. non-endemic teams and cities.

And we continued to wait.

Then last month, like Prometheus gifting mankind fire, Blizzard released details on the initial 7 cities and teams that would take place in the Overwatch League.

For those keeping score at home, that's 250 days. What's happened in the world since then? Trump became President....I guess we can stop right there.

In that time, the NBA not only announced their NBA2K ELEAGUE and 17 teams would be participating. Riot Games announced details around their North American league.

After Blizzard's city announcement, more details emerged around revenue sharing and SuperData created a great chart the same day comparing both franchises.

Since then even more insight has been revealed into both Riot Games NA LCS and Activision Blizzard's Overwatch League.

In conjunction with SuperData, The Next Level wanted to take a deeper look at how both franchise options stack up.

NA LCS VS. OVERWATCH LEAGUE

New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Toronto Maple Leafs collectively have been in operation for 273 years. How have they lasted this long?

In eSports many teams rarely last a year; for example, only four teams from the first North American League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS) are still placed in the league.

How is this solved in traditional sports? Franchising.

The Maple Leafs were a founding member of the NHL, the Cowboys were the first expansion team of the NFL, and the Yankees spent a lot of money and got lucky or something [Edit: Sorry, Mets fan]

Now both Riot Games and Activision Blizzard want to bring this concept to their two flagship competitions: the NA LCS and the Overwatch League (OWL). While each league concept is similar, there are a few fundamental differences between their approaches.

Here's a side by side comparison of both franchises with further analysis: