Will the Overwatch League be a staple within the eSports landscape of 2018 and beyond? In many regards, the foundation looks promising: There is a financial and structural strong publisher, there is a huge player pool, there are franchised teams representing cities and there are entities providing cash, knowledge and experience. Nevertheless the inagrual season of the league – which will start next week – has to live up to its expectations, especially when it comes to fan engagement and media reach.

Therefore we take a look at the current social media followers of the Overwatch League franchises.

League Setup

Before we take a look at the numbers, let’s just have a short overview about what we are talking here:

Social Media Strategy

When it comes to social media the strategy of league host Blizzard Entertainment focuses on the most popular social networking sites of the world: Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. All these social media platforms also enjoy great popularity among eSports enthusiasts so the choice seems reasonable. In fact, some professional eSports players have millions of fans on social media.

But how do the participants of the Overwatch League perform on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram?

Let’s take a look:

Youtube: Dallas Fuel dominates the video ranking

Facebook: Seoul Dynasty has the most likes

Twitter: San Francisco Shock tweets to the most fans

Instagram: Dallas Fuel is the king of images

And what about the players?

While a lot of Overwatch League players use Youtube, Facebook or Instagram to get in touch with their fans, the most used social media platform seems to be Twitter. Our research shows that 91 out of the 113 professional Overwatch players have a Twitter account. And some of them show off quite some fanbase, even bigger than the associated franchise!

Most famous professional Overwatch players on Twitter

So what?

What can we take from this?

Although these numbers aren’t impressive at all and a lot of teams lack in followers on multiple social media platforms, Blizzard Entertainment and the franchises of the Overwatch League have done a decent job in creating a basis for a healthy and expandable social media structure.

But: There is a lot of space for improvement considering that …

What do you think?

Do you think the Overwatch League will live up to the expectations or will we see one of the biggest failures in eSports short history? Let us know and join the conversation on reddit, Twitter or Facebook!

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