On the Overwatch subreddit, it's not unusual to run across a post that makes you shake your head or smack your forehead. This time, I did both.





In a rather popular post with a 94 percent upvote rate, Redditor JigglyJacob pointed out that the current Overwatch commentators had a habit of "burying teams." In essence, that meant making them look bad on-air. Naturally, Blizzard probably doesn't want the Overwatch League casters to "bury" the players as that's their "product" on display, but that's not what they are doing when they criticize teams.





They're doing their jobs.

This has been my criticism as well. With cleaner teamplay, NYXL can challenge for #1. https://t.co/v6V2StjJsE — MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) January 19, 2018

Ironically his first example is the easiest to explain:





"Even in non-scripted professional sports. Imagine if in an NFL football game that is between the number one team and the last place team. Sure, we may KNOW what's going to happen, but it's the job of the commentators to call the action without bias and give us a reason to believe we could be surprised. You can't say "They've been failing here, here and here. I don't see how they can pull this one off." Great. Then I should probably just not watch because I know how it's gonna go, right?"





Wrong. This happens twice a year (more often than that). As a New York Jets fan, I have the privilege of watching them get hammered twice a year by the New England Patriots. The Patriots are arguably the best team in the league while the Jets are very close to the bottom. The commentators always have a difficult job of trying to keep the game entertaining even though the skill gap is vast. But they never stray from calling out faults. Remember the ​Butt Fumble? After the commentators realized what actually happened, they didn't coddle the fans. We knew it was a hilarious and embarrassing play and no amount of sugarcoating by the commentators was going to fix that.





Casters shouldn't treat all teams equally because the teams aren't equal. If the casters call out three mistakes about the Philadelphia Fusion, they don't owe three to the other team. If one team is vastly superior to the other, they don't need to "even" the playing field by pulling things out of thin air to make one team seem better than it is.

I don't want to take away from @OutlawsOW 's fantastic improvement, but this win was just as influenced by @DallasFuel 's woes. — Alberto Rengifo (@ProphetCrumbz) January 18, 2018

It's the job of the organization to make a product worthy of fan reaction. It's not the caster's job to overlook poor play or go easy on certain teams. If you are mad about "What's the point in watching the best team against the worst team?" -- that's the conundrum of every sport. Parity.





If you want to complain about an issue that's clearly a problem (and looks to get worse as the league expands), it's the discrepancy of talent throughout the teams. We are seeing a top-heavy league and no amount of casting will fix that. Blaming the casters for "burying" teams when they are being professional and doing their job is ridiculous.





Of course, the casters can't act bored throughout the game or mention how pointless this match is, but they are not doing that in any way.





Here was another point from the Reddit thread worth pointing out:





"Don't act like you're seeing a ghost when the Mayhem gets the better of the Dynasty in a fight, or when the Dragons pull off some great plays against the Spitfire. Don't treat it like a fluke. Yes, it's surprising to the viewer, but acting like this shouldn't be happening makes a team look bad even in victories. It makes a viewer think "Oh, the better team must have just slipped up. This won't happen again, surely."





It can be difficult for fans to accept, but for "poor teams" success can often be attributed to a mistake made by the better team. Not always. Teams can make an excellent play even though their counterparts played back perfectly. But it's common to see the better team make a mistake, leading to a great play by the opposing team. It's always situational. It could be a poor ultimate economy by Spitfire that led to point control by the Dragons. This is an important distinction because the average player can learn the nuances of professional play. It's not always as simple as one team won the fight, so they must be better. Casters should and are going in-depth on why the team fights are lost, but it should never be pampered to make one team feel better about themselves.





This is a professional league. Players know how to handle criticism, and if they don't, they need to learn quickly. The fans are adults, and I want to be treated as one. I know when my team is bad and I don't need a caster trying to hide that fact. If the team I'm cheering for does something magnificent, I want them to be praised for that. But if they're playing like shit, I don't need to hear, "They are trying really hard and deserve credit for not losing as bad as they did last week." Call out the weakness on every team and hopefully, it exposes problems for the team to fix.

My tweet about /r/Overwatch reaches top 5 on the sub.



People claim nothing needs to change because the content upvoted is supposedly what they want to see.



But my post asking for change is also upvoted.



樂 — MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) January 19, 2018

Casters have the ability to showcase problems a team has and allow the fans to express their displeasure. Take the Cleveland Browns, for instance. Do you think their fans want to hear some half-assed reason on how their team is "competing" and trying their "hardest." No. Those fans want to win. They want management and ownership to fix the problems and when organizations are dragging their feet, casters have the ability to call out those issues again and again.





You want that. You want casters with the knowledge, the exposure, and the access to help you understand why your team is losing and what it needs to do to improve.

​​Photo courtesy of Blizzard