Cloud9 are one of the biggest esports organisations to come out of the US, with successful teams and players across multiple titles.

So when it was announced that their Overwatch League (OWL) team would be based in London, it came as quite the shock.

Out of the 12 current teams in the Overwatch League, Cloud9's London Spitfire are the only ones based in Europe. Once the league moves away from Los Angeles and goes global, it's a move that could prove to be problematic.

Cloud9 owned London Spitfire are the only Overwatch League team to be based in Europe

However, for Spitfire's owner, Jack Etienne, there was only one place he wanted the team to be in: ''People may scratch their heads about it sometimes but for me it was a case of why wouldn't you go to London? It's one of the biggest and most exciting metropolitan areas in the west with tons of fans who haven't had a team of their own.

'The city is designed in a way that it's really accessible to get people in to watch games. When Blizzard asked where I wanted to go, London was the top pick for me, I felt we already had a ton of Cloud9 fans there who want a team they can call their own and I want to build them the best one possible.'

Despite that, London fans aren't convinced this is really their team. An American organisation sporting an all-Korean roster, playing their games in LA means some fans are beginning to feel disconnected.

The OWL is still in its early stages, teams don't have their arenas ready in their own cities' locations. meaning the first season will be played solely in Los Angeles and fans won't get to see their teams in person for quite some time.

Etienne is well aware of the growing unrest amongst fans but isn't worried. He says London have an incredible team and they will do what they can to connect with the British audience: 'When I knew I was ready to be a part of the league, I had an Overwatch team that wasn't functioning very well.

British fans feel disconnected from Spitfire who are American owned with an all-Korean roster

'I knew I needed to represent London well and have the best team possible. I didn't care where in the world the players came from, I just wanted a very strong team. So we held try-outs in Europe, in America and in Korea to bring the best players to Cloud9 - before we even decided on the name Spitfire.

'Initially, I really wanted to have like 50% of the roster be British but all of the British players were already signed to teams and those teams weren't willing to release their players as they were hoping to be a part of the league themselves. Buy-out attempts were flatly refused.

'The players we have now were so excited to be a part of the league, they didn't actually dig too much into moving country, they were just thrilled to be part of the OWL and represent something bigger.

'They're also really hungry to learn more about London and British history. Once we get into the offseason and have time to travel, it's going to be high in our priorities to spend time in London so the guys can learn more. In the mean time, we've already started English lessons for the player and some of them already have a pretty good grasp of the language.

'I think the best thing for me to do is go out there and show London that we have built them an extremely strong team and then once we're actually able to leave LA and travel, go to meet the people face-to-face.'

London fans will be relieved to hear that the team will be making efforts to connect with their new home but the end of the season is a long way away. Fortunately, Brits won't have to wait until the Summer to find out more about the players as Spitfire have already hired a content director who is working exclusively with the teams to create fun content and introduce everyone to the stories of each individual player.

British fans will be relieved to hear Spitfire will travel to London and fans once Season 1 ends

The global locations of the Overwatch League is something that has never been done before so it naturally has lead to a lot of excitement but also a lot of questions.

Being the only team in Europe, Spitfire would be isolated from other teams and would spend more time flying than they would competing if a home and away system was to be used.

Blizzard haven't decided yet how the globalisation of the League will work but Jack Etienne has a unique idea that he would like to see implemented: 'One of the most important things when running an esports team is making sure your players have really high quality scrims to learn how to be the best players they can.

'So for this to work, I personally believe that the teams should be travelling together; almost like a road show or a tour. They would travel around in groups of five or six and they would go to several cities for several weeks at a time and then move on to the next city.

'This would allow the players to constantly scrim each other to make sure they're at the top of their game and also allow teams to bring other teams to their location. That's my personal opinion and has no bearing on what the league is actually going to do.'

Etienne would like to see the OWL connect with fans all around the world by doing a global tour

The tour idea is certainly an interesting one and would allow Blizzard to engage with sets of fans all around the world without sacrificing competitive integrity. Although it remains to be seen whether the league will expand with more teams for season two, especially with the current lack of teams in Europe.

One of the inspiration's behind Etienne's idea actually come from one of Cloud9's investors: the WWE. With a $20million (£15m) entry fee for the Overwatch League and another $7m (£5m) to enter the NA LCS, Cloud9 had to search for investors.

WWE have recently upped their interest into the video game YouTube channel UpUpDownDown which now has over 1m subscribers. Etienne approached the wrestling company hoping to learn from them but says he ended up with much more than he bargained for: 'I really admired the way the WWE is run, I was always intrigued by their business model and always felt the way they activated their fans by having a tour is how esports live events should be approached.

'I thought there was a lot we could learn from them in ways to activate our fans as well so I initially I reached out to them to see what I could learn and it turned out they were interested in esports. After several talks with them, it became clear that they actually wanted more than just a partnership, they wanted to be a part of epsorts and be a part of Cloud9. It's very exciting and I would love to see crossover between the two in the future.'