The entire Overwatch League regular season will be online-only
Blizzard's still hoping to run live events for the playoffs and Grand Finals.
The Overwatch League has canceled all of its live events for the remainder of the 2020 regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Matches will take place in an entirely online format until August at the very least.
After two seasons of OWL matches taking place almost exclusively at a studio in Los Angeles, Blizzard took the league on the road this year. Teams were to play matches at live homestands across North America, Europe and Asia. But coronavirus concerns affected those plans from the jump.
The league postponed events that were scheduled to take place in China and Korea in February and March. Teams elsewhere were only able to make it through five weeks of homestands before Blizzard called off all league events through April. Matches resumed this past weekend with teams playing at their own training facilities or team houses.
With the spread of COVID-19 accelerating in many parts of the world, Blizzard's call to cancel the remaining 28 homestands is understandable, though surely disappointing to fans who'd planned to see their favorite team in person. Blizzard is hoping the situation will have changed enough to run live events for the playoffs and Grand Finals in the fall. It will announce more details about those down the line.
