Details about the deal between Activision Blizzard and Google have emerged. Allegedly, YouTube is worth 160 million US dollars to broadcast the eSports leagues of Overwatch and Call of Duty for 3 years. However, Hearthstone was practically free. Previously, Overwatch was an important channel on Twitch.
This was the official announcement: At the end of January, Activision Blizzard and Google announced that they have reached a comprehensive agreement . As part of this agreement, the eSports leagues of Activision Blizzard are to be exclusively broadcast on YouTube. The video platform belongs to Google.
In 2018 and 2019, Activision Blizzard still had an exclusive deal with Twitch for the Overwatch League. Overwatch was a key channel for the streaming platform, which belongs to Amazon, during those two years.
From 2020 onwards, the following eSports events will only be available on YouTube:
- the established Overwatch League
- the new Call of Duty League
- the Master Series of Hearthstone
160 million dollars over 3 years and hefty bonuses
A leak now says: According to sources from the eSportsobserver, the deal is said to be worth 160 million dollars over 3 years. The last deal with Twitch only involved the Overwatch League and was allegedly 90 million dollars over 2 years.
The base amount of the deal is therefore not a significant improvement for the Overwatch League compared to the Twitch days. However, the sources indicate that there are some bonuses and clauses in the contract that could increase the revenues of the Overwatch League and the teams if certain milestones in merchandise sales and viewer numbers are reached.
The sources describe these target agreements as “achievable.”
Hearthstone was practically thrown in for free
What is the money for? It is said:
- The majority of the money was worth the now expanded Overwatch League to Google.
- Still valuable, but assessed as slightly less valuable, was the new “Call of Duty” League.
- The eSports of Hearthstone was more or less “thrown in for free” because Hearthstone is not considered a top eSports title.
As part of the deal, it was agreed that Activision Blizzard would now use Google as its Cloud provider. This could improve server performance.
The first viewer numbers of the Overwatch League on YouTube were, however, significantly lower than the numbers from 2019 on Twitch.
The Overwatch League is considered one of Blizzard’s top priorities for 2020:
