Annotated Bibliography

Why Overwatch League Could Make eSports Mainstream

Michael Funari

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

3/16/18
 Annotated Bibliography

The Associated Press, GREG BEACHAM. "The future of esports arrives with Overwatch

League launch - The Overwatch League has been launched in an audacious attempt to

showcase esports within a traditional sports structure." Daily Reflector, The (Greenville,

NC), 12 Jan. 2018, Local, p. 4. NewsBank,

infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/169616DDB2F33A68?p=WORLDNEW

S. Accessed 9 Mar. 2018.

This is a newspaper article which describes the basic format of overwatch league

competitive games. It describes the venue at which they are played at. The basic structure

of the league. It explains why fans are interested in the league. The article also explains at Commented [BA1]: Combine these two sentences

length the type of people and companies who are investing in Overwatch League teams

and why they would do so. It draws comparisons between the Overwatch League Commented [BA2]: Combine/revise these two sentences

structure and other sports leagues such as the NFL or NBA. With regards to the articles

credibility it was published in the Daily Reflector. The Daily Reflector is a North

Carolina newspaper that was founded in 1882. It is safe to say that their articles are

credible. I would consider this source useful. It gives the reader good insight into some of

the business decisions going on behind the scenes of the Overwatch League. I will

probably use this source in my paper. It could be helpful in conveying how large of an Commented [BA3]: Any possible biases

investment the league is for many companies. It also explains what demographic makes

up the audience of the Overwatch League and why people are interested in it. It also

explains that while this is not a conventional sport many celebrity figures are already

investing in teams such as Shaquille O’Neil and Jenifer Lopez investing in the San

Francisco Shock. Commented [BA4]: Possibly tell more about the Currency
of the source?
The Overwatch League, Blizzard Entertainment, overwatchleague.com/en-us/. Accessed 08

March 2018.

This is the official Overwatch League website. From here the user can watch live games,

look at the league schedule, see each team’s standings in the league and even buy

merchandise or tickets to the game. There is even a news section to help viewers keep up

with the league. The site looks very professional. It seems like Blizzard Entertainment,

the game publisher, wants this to be the site to go to for anything regarding the

Overwatch League. Considering the site credibility, I think it would be fair to say that Commented [BA5]: The currency maybe

anything on the site would be fairly credible. However, I doubt there would be any

negative information about the overwatch league that could be found on this site. For

example, if the leagues viewership were to suddenly drop by a large margin I doubt

Blizzard would report about it. For information like that I should go to news sites. I could

see my self using some of the information on this site for my paper. The problem with

this site is that it does not give any thing other than basic information about the

Overwatch league. Compared to the newspaper article this site doesn’t have information

that would be interesting to the audience of my paper. I could only see myself using this

website to explain to my audience how the league is formatted, where they could watch it

and where they could keep up with it.

Hamari, Juho and Max Sjöblom. "What Is Esports and Why Do People Watch It?." Internet

Research, vol. 27, no. 2, Mar. 2017, pp. 211-232. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1108/IntR-04-

2016-0085. Commented [BA6]: Add the URL

This academic paper explores the reasons as to why people watch eSports. The author

puts forth a list of reasons as to why someone would watch an eSport and then explains
 how these reasons are very similar, if not the same, as to why people watch traditional

sports. The authors reasons are vicarious achievement, an appreciation of the aesthetic

aspect, physical attractiveness of the players, drama, escapism, acquiring knowledge,

appreciation of players skill, social interaction, novelty, and aggressive behavior

associated with competition. The authors of this paper are Dr Hamari Juho and Max

Sjöblom. Dr Hamari Juho is a professor of gamification at the university of Tampere in

Finland, and Max Sjöblom is a researcher at the school of information sciences at the

same university. This research paper seems about as credible as the news paper article. I

will most likely use this in my paper, because it reinforces the idea that there is not a lot

of differences between eSports and traditional sports when it comes to reasons for

watching. This paper also has good definition for the term eSport which I am most likely

going to use in my paper.

Fortson, Danny. "Tycoons line up to turn teen gaming into a spectator sport." Sunday Times, The

(London, England), 14 Jan. 2018, 01 - eire, News, p. 7. NewsBank,

infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/1696E107A3AAD818?p=WORLDNEW

S. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.

This newspaper article is similar other one as it is about what type of people are investing

in the Overwatch league. The article states that Blizzard Entertainment had a 20 million

dollar buy in for each of the 12 teams in the Overwatch league. The author states that Commented [BA7]: Who is it and the credibility

billionaires like Stan Kroenke, owner of the Arsenal soccer team, are investing in

Overwatch league teams. The author also explains how unlike other eSports the

Overwatch league is more like traditional sports with each team having their own home

city, logo, colors, and eventually their own stadium. The article also states that the
average yearly earning for a pro player is $120,000. Also, one player who goes by the

name Sinatra received a $150,000 yearly contract to be a part of the San Francisco Shock.

This article was written by Danny Fortson of the Sunday Times. The Sunday Times is a

British newspaper founded in 1822. It is one of the UK’s bestselling Sunday papers. This

article would be important to use in my paper, because it does a good job at illustrating

how much money investors are putting in the Overwatch league. It also has a good quote

from the London Spitfires team owner “Millennials don't differentiate between esports

and traditional sports in the way my generation would". I could definitely use that quote

In my paper. Commented [BA8]: Lowercase