The Overwatch League Grand Finals
The Overwatch League Grand Finals.
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Overwatch League commissioner Nate Nanzer: Esports profits are light at the end of the tunnel

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 10 min

Nate Nanzer is the commissioner of the Overwatch League, and he hopes his particular esport will become the mainstream competitive league of choice for a global audience of esports fans.

The Overwatch League kicked off in January with a dozen teams that were organized into franchises from local cities. In the first week, the league generated more than 10 million viewers. By the time the finals came around in July, the league drew a global audience of 861,000 viewers per minute across TV and streaming platforms.

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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.