The outcome of the third season for the Dallas Fuel and Overwatch League wasn’t decided during the opening weekend homestands, but it was never going to be.

A lot happened in Dallas (technically Arlington) and New York that could give a glimpse into the future, though — eight teams traveled to the home of two rowdy fan bases, players spoke their minds on current dilemmas and the on-air talent handled an unexpected hiccup.

The Fuel started 0-2 with losses to the San Francisco Shock (1-0) and Los Angeles Valiant (1-1), so they certainly didn’t have all the answers. OWL doesn’t either, but a lot was learned over the weekend, starting with homestands.

OWL’s geolocation aspirations for the third season met its beginning last Saturday. The travel schedules are heavy, moving teams and players tens of thousands of miles across the world over the course of a season.

Players shared their mixed opinions.

Two superstars from the defending champion San Francisco Shock, Jay “Sinatraa” Won and Matthew “Super” DiLisi were both excited. They said they liked the thought of moving from one homestand to another, though Sinatraa jokingly admitted he doesn’t do well with some of the transportation involved.

“I need to take Melatonin or something,” Sinatraa said after defeating the Fuel 3-1 on Sunday. “I hate airplanes, but traveling will be fun.”

While Sinatraa was in favor of moving around the globe for competition, his concern was shared by Valiant tank player Caleb “McGravy” McGarvey.

“Can you make (traveling) easier? It’s just tough,” McGravy said. “Traveling in general is exhausting and obviously you can give us more time but just being away from home is tough for some people. I don’t really have a solution. I don’t really know if there is a solution.”

There was only one solution for handling one problem involving geolocation this season. Jon Spector, the vice president of Overwatch Esports at Blizzard, told The Dallas Morning News in a phone interview that OWL didn’t have much of a choice but to cancel the China homestands during February and March due to the outbreak of the coronavirus in the country.

That put a large hole in the league’s schedule. The Fuel don’t play another match until March 7 in South Korea now — that’s their only match for the next six weeks.

How the league handles the missed matches is something to follow, because it isn’t just a couple. All of the remaining homestands host at least four matches.

The silver lining for some of those teams, including the Fuel, is the travel will be lighter — at least until a solution for the canceled homestands is announced.

But the league still misses out on seeing what the Chinese teams are capable of doing in hosting events.

The fan attendance was strong in Dallas on opening weekend, selling out on Saturday and landing just shy of another sellout on Sunday. Part of the Fuel’s gameplay struggles were a result of not playing on the big stage as a group yet.

We didn’t get the W, but we got to watch some Overwatch with thousands of our friends this weekend. The team is improving every day. Thank you all for being the best supporters in esports. #BurnBlue pic.twitter.com/yeTFF27BmI — Mike Rufail (@hastr0) February 10, 2020

The newest member of the team, William “Crimzo” Hernandez, signed with the Fuel in early February and immediately started.

“I’ve played on stages before, specifically the World Cup, but I had a lot of fun and I’m really excited to keep playing on stage,” Crimzo said. “Online is completely different and stage is way more fun. It’s not the results we wanted but I’m just ready to move on and continue improving.”

The fans supporting the Fuel at Esports Stadium Arlington were electric in the moments the Fuel shined. Dallas had a wacky weekend on stage, losing a match to a low-ranked Valiant team and competed with a loaded Shock squad, which hadn’t lost a map since Sept. 6 against Atlanta.

Homestand weekend for the Fuel involved local high school participation, gaming and activities in a festival like setting. All of that was a hit, but if the Fuel want to keep its euphoric base showing out, the best way is probably to win. That’s how they felt, speaking their minds on Twitter after the dust settled.

GGs @SFShock. That Oasis was soooooo close... Who knows how the series could've gone if we had closed it out. Thank you so much to all the fans that came out to support us. Give us time, I promise we will be better. #BurnBlue — Crimzo (@Crimzo) February 10, 2020

OWL also had some bumps during the opening weekend that may solidify itself in league history, and not from huge plays or sellout crowds.

The league’s partnership with Cheez-It probably didn’t start as expected, and the advertisement stayed up on the YouTube stream and interrupted viewers’ ability to see significant plays.

Like for real, is the whole stream team sleeping for this to happen? In the middle of a fight, cutting to an ad graphic and keeping it up for almost a minute. Unacceptable. #OWL2020 #OverwatchLeague #CrunchTime pic.twitter.com/ZwFAazH4SQ — Jussi Lundelin (@rioichiFIN) February 8, 2020

Fixing this problem should be high up on the list of things learned from opening weekend. The announcement of Activision Blizzard’s media rights deal with YouTube Gaming shocked the community after it was announced just hours before the Call of Duty League’s inaugural match on Jan. 24.

This is perhaps a growing pain from streaming on a new platform, but fans weren’t pleased with missing gameplay. Even with the frustration, the community managed to have fun with it.

CRUNCH TIME!!! — Jayne (@EnvyJayne) February 8, 2020

The Fuel and OWL will inevitably have more problems to deal with, but if both can handle it gracefully in crunch time, there will be plenty of support ready for even more to cheer for.

Find more Fuel coverage from The Dallas Morning News here. Find more esports coverage from The News here.