As I have become absolutely obsessed with Blizzard’s Overwatch League, I’ve been wondering how people choose their favourite team.

Because you just have to look at the ranking of cheers on OWL’s Twitch, to see that there’s a big difference in popularity between the 12 teams. And it has little to do with wins as well: Both the most and least cheered for team can be found in the lower half of the standings.

So, what makes some teams more popular than others? After spending a lot of time in the OWL fan community on different social networks, I think it mostly comes down to a mix of these 6 factors.

1. Winning

This is one is easy: No matter the team you’ve chosen, supporting them is way more fun when they are winning instead of constantly losing.

This is why, for example, London Spitfire immediately had a fan base when it was announced that their main roster would include most of the players of Apex’ successful GC Busan team.

Who does it best?

You will always have fans if you play as well as New York Excelsior and London Spitfire.

2. Have the right mix of player personality and team chemistry

Humans, as you probably know, are social beings. If players are funny, entertaining, or just generally cool people on their streams, their fans will follow them once they’ve been picked up by a team.

This also applies to entire teams: Great chemistry or even true friendships between players are fun to watch. And they make the little hormones in our brain that react to positive social interactions go do their work. Of course, there is also something to be said about the entertainment that drama and rivalries bring. All in all, the league would be boring if no one hated or loved each other.

Who does it best?

It is hard to pick one team who excels here, because there are so many factors at play: xQc’s thousands of stream viewers became Dallas Fuel fans, Florida Mayhem’s positive mindset despite their bad match results makes you want to root for them, the history that New York’s, Seoul’s and London’s players have makes for exciting revenges and reunions.

3. Be transparent and treat your fans right

This is something a lot of teams are struggling with (especially looking at you, Dallas). People don’t like the unknown: We don’t like not knowing why a talented player has been sitting on the bench for 5 games when he shows great potential at a hero that the team’s been struggling with. We don’t like not knowing why the team suddenly seems to have inter-party tensions. We like it so little, we make entire subreddits to speculate wildly. Sure, that is fun too, but it tends to attract more drama-fans than genuine supporters.

Here’s something some coaches fail to realize: Arguing with your fans on Twitter is a sure-fire way to make yourself — and your in some cases your entire team — disliked.

Giving regular updates and showing behind the scenes footage, however, gives fans the feeling that they are involved. This is why it is also harder to like the Shanghai Dragons as a non-Chinese fan: There is fairly little in terms of English-language communication from them.

Who does it best? Even though they have recently struggled with questionable player decisions, the Houston Outlaws are not afraid to answer critical questions from fans in their regular post match-interviews.

4. Make your teams into Youtubers, like, twice a month

Producing content that has nothing to do with the game and just fun isn’t a dumb thing. No matter if it’s giving a house tour or getting your Scandinavians to eat Girl Scout cookies for the their first time, playful content and silly challenges showcase the teams’ personalities in a fun way. And who doesn’t like to see a Korean guy eat Marmite for the first time?

It may be questionable why orgs would take away valuable practice time and pay a film team to make a few silly videos that don’t contribute anything to the team’s performance.

I don’t really have a clear-cut answer here either, but I know it makes me like the teams that do so. Maybe orgs do it because of that relationship between brand likeability and team likeability: You like the sponsor of your favourite team way better than that of the team you don’t like. It’s all about that ad money.

Or maybe, orgs just wanna have fun too.

Who does it best?

The Houston Outlaws. They answer silly questions, eat lemons until one of them falls off a chair from laughing and release a beautifully edited 20-minute vlog from behind the scenes every week. It doesn’t get better than that.

5. Provide Representation

This is something that doesn’t apply to all fans, but for a few people, it plays a huge part in how they chose their favourite team. If you take a look at the OWL fanbase on tumblr for example, you will notice many female fans and members of the LGBT community who fiercely support the Shanghai Dragons and/or the Houston Outlaws. Of course teams shouldn’t just sign any player that fits a certain category to gain support, but there is no denying that Muma and Geguri brought quite a few new fans to the league and maybe even to eSports.

6. Have the home advantage

This has been working with traditional sports for decades: You like the players and teams that are from where you are! Blizzard knows this, which is exactly why OWL’s teams aren’t named after their owners, but after real cities! This also opens the door for watch parties and meet-ups.

Many fans, especially outside the U.S., aren’t so lucky, though. There isn’t a single team or player from my country, for example (come on, Germany!). Fortunately, the League’ s commissioner Nate Nanzer recently said that there are plans to expand the teams from 12 to 28 cities worldwide.

Who does it best?

All of them, by design. Though it is especially easy for the two(!) Los Angeles teams — LA Valiant and LA Gladiators — with their geographical proximity to their ticket-buying fans.

**There’s a million ways to win fans’ hearts

Of course this isn’t a complete list, because that would be impossible considering how many thousands of fans enjoy the Overwatch League. Maybe you like the team that your friend likes. Maybe you like a team because it includes your friend. Maybe you always root for the underdogs (if you like a lot of stress in your life, now may be the time to invest in Shanghai). Or maybe you just really, really, really like the colour of Seoul’s hero skins.

Still, I hope this gave some insight into why people support teams that you don’t see the appeal in at all. It certainly gave me that realization.

The fact that there is a team for everyone, and you don’t have to chose a winning roster of 12 more or less faceless players, makes being in an OWL fanbase an exciting experience. I feel like how a football fan must be feeling when I see my team play. This is a great way for a nerd who never cared about traditional sports to experience that feeling.

If you liked this, you can follow me on here or Twitter. I am an Online Marketing major with a focus on Community Management, so I intend on writing more about the OWL community(s) in the future! Thank you!