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Overwatch League announces online match format & March/April schedule

Following cancelation of live matches due to risk of COVID-19, the Overwatch League has announced its plans to resume in an online format along with a March and April schedule.

TJ Denzer

March 17, 2020 2:45 PM

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No matter if there’s a global pandemic or not, the world keeps moving. The coronavirus has disrupted a huge portion of industry around the world, but esports is arguably in a place to recover and get back to business the best as Overwatch League has helped to prove. The League is moving to an online format in lieu of canceled live events and a March and April schedule of matches have been announced.

The Overwatch League announced its new online format and revised schedule March and April matches on the Overwatch League website on March 17, 2020. According to the newly posted 2020 schedule, Overwatch League will resume on Saturday, March 21, 2020, kicking off with a match between Seoul Dynasty and San Francisco Shock at 11AM PT / 2PM ET. Overwatch League is arranging for matches to be played in just three regions in order to ensure the least amount of latency issues possible, but teams will also be scheduled to play the amount of matches that will catch them up to where they should have been by this point of the season.

This is going to be WILD 🤯

⚔ @SFShock vs @SeoulDynasty ⚔

Dynasty make their debut against the reigning champs, who's it gonna be? 👀

— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) March 17, 2020

Overwatch League’s initiative to move their events and matches online follows in the footsteps of League of Legends North American competitive organization LCS, who announced a similar move to online matches to resume their Spring 2020 season earlier today. The games will still be streamed via Twitch over the Overwatch League channel, although some level of lesser production should be expected given the lack of the usual Overwatch arena live format and casting. Even so, it’s another step in the right direction for esports leagues to get back on track and hopefully bodes well for other affected scenes like the European League of Legends LEC to follow suite.

Stay tuned for further information and updates as the Overwatch League gets back underway this coming weekend.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.