ESPN, Disney, ABC Reach Multi-Year Deal to Air Overwatch League
Images via Joe Scarnici/Getty, Blizzard
Blizzard just scored a big win for its e-sports title Overwatch as the game publisher and Disney announced Wednesday that the Overwatch League will be airing on Disney’s family of networks. That includes several ESPN channels, Disney XD and ABC.
The multi-year deal begins tonight with the Overwatch League Playoffs, along with the season one grand finals next month at the Barclays Center in New York and season two next year. It focuses on live and full replays of the Overwatch competition, as well as a recap show airing on ABC. While Disney will also have streaming rights to the Overwatch League, viewers can still tune into Twitch broadcasts of the event, as that distribution deal is still in place.
ESPN Vice President of Digital Media Programming John Lasker said of the deal: