Competitive Overwatch won’t end with the League

theverge.com:

The day Overwatch League fans have braced for has finally come. Yesterday, OverActive Media, parent company for the Toronto Defiant, confirmed its exit from the Overwatch League. The company announced that as a part of its agreement with Activision Blizzard, it would receive a $6 million termination fee, thereby ending all its commitments to the League. This confirms that a majority of teams have met and voted to terminate their agreements with the League, with each team owner receiving a termination fee. The result is that the Overwatch League is finally ending after six seasons.

“We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction,” said John Nomis, associate PR manager for the Overwatch League, in a statement to The Verge. “We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program. We are excited to share details with you all in the near future.”

This is an ending that came like a whimper instead of a bang. And while that seems sad and kind of pathetic given the League’s lofty goals of revolutionizing the esports scene, l’m okay with this ending. Happy even.

I — and most importantly, the army of wonderful humans who lived, breathed, and worked in and around OWL — didn’t have to wake up to apocalyptic news that the League we’ve loved for six years no longer existed. Instead, we got to watch it slowly drift away from us, like a beloved pet being put to sleep. The slow, inexorable, and inevitable news started at the beginning of the year when it was announced that the Chengdu Hunters would not be participating in this year’s season.

Since then, every other update — from layoffs at OWL teams to the