LA Valiant at the Overwatch League.
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Overwatch League viewership is growing, and expansion teams are coming

Viewership for Overwatch League esports broadcasts is growing, and Activision Blizzard is engaged in negotiations to add more expansion teams this year.

Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Morhaime said today in an analyst conference call on Activision-Blizzard’s earnings report that the company is “very happy with the launch of the Overwatch League, which got under way with 12 teams in January. He said it is outperforming expectations, with millions of fans tuning into online broadcasts every week. The average fan spends more than one hour watching each day.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.