Overwatch League Stage 1, Week 1: Can the hype last?

The second weekend of the year saw all eyes turn to Blizzard, as the most anticipated league in esport’s history had its inaugural day of competition.
With a game not even two years old, the ambitious launch by Overwatch’s Head of Development Jeff Kaplan and his team cost hopeful competitors upwards of $20 million in buy-in fees and was almost seemingly destined for failure. However, by signing on team owners that include the likes of Stan Kroenke, Robert Kraft, and high profile esports brands such as Cloud9 and OpTic Gaming, Blizzard set themselves up for a meteoric launch for 2018.
In the first day alone, the league peaked at over 415,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch.TV, not including the thousands tuning in from live viewer events throughout the world. The impressive feat of the league is not limited to the day one peak, with the league averaging over 200,000 concurrent viewers through the course of the 3 days of Stage 1 action.
With action resuming in the second day of Week 2 on Thursday the 18th from 11 AM AEST, will the Overwatch League be able to stamp its authority as one of the world’s best competitions? As its closest competitor kicks off with the Boston Eleague Major, Overwatch may face trouble in sustaining the hype. Do you think the Overwatch League has what it takes?
You can keep up with the all the results, players, and teams at https://overwatchleague.com/
 
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