{"id":8851,"date":"2018-07-12T11:50:56","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T15:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-overwatch-esports-deal\/"},"modified":"2018-07-12T11:50:56","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T15:50:56","slug":"espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN in Overwatch eSports Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ESPN and Disney XD have reached a deal with Blizzard Entertainment to deliver live coverage in the U.S. of the Overwatch League, a professional eSports league that has teams across Asia, Europe and North America.<\/p>\n<p>The exclusive multiyear agreement kicked off this week with playoff coverage and culminates with the Grand Finals live from Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on July 27 and 28. The pact also covers live streaming on the ESPN app and DisneyNOW.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Overwatch League Grand Finals is by far our most comprehensive television distribution for an eSports event over a single weekend: 10 total hours over four networks and three days,\u201d said Justin Connolly, executive VP of affiliate sales and marketing at Disney and ESPN Media Networks. \u201cThis overall collaboration with Disney\/ABC, ESPN and Blizzard represents our continued commitment to eSports, and we look forward to providing marquee Overwatch League coverage across our television platforms for fans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Blizzard team has created a genre-leading eSport and a premium professional franchise system in the Overwatch League,\u201d said Marc Buhaj, senior VP of programming and general manager of Disney XD. \u201cWe are kicking off the agreement by showcasing the inaugural season playoffs and Grand Finals live across our linear footprint. Together with our telecast partners at ESPN, we look forward to growing a legion of new Overwatch fans across the next two years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESPN and Disney XD have reached a deal with Blizzard Entertainment to deliver live coverage in the U.S. of the Overwatch League, a professional eSports league that has teams across Asia, Europe and North America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":8852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[1488,189,1848],"class_list":["post-8851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-disney-xd","tag-espn","tag-overwatch-league"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ESPN in Overwatch eSports Deal - TVUSA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"ESPN and Disney XD have reached a deal with Blizzard Entertainment to deliver live coverage in the U.S. of the Overwatch League, a professional eSports league that has teams across Asia, Europe and North America.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ESPN in Overwatch eSports Deal - TVUSA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ESPN and Disney XD have reached a deal with Blizzard Entertainment to deliver live coverage in the U.S. of the Overwatch League, a professional eSports league that has teams across Asia, Europe and North America.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVUSA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-07-12T15:50:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/07\/overwatch-718.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal\/\",\"name\":\"ESPN in Overwatch eSports Deal - TVUSA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-07-12T15:50:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-07-12T15:50:56+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"description\":\"ESPN and Disney XD have reached a deal with Blizzard Entertainment to deliver live coverage in the U.S. of the Overwatch League, a professional eSports league that has teams across Asia, Europe and North America.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/espn-in-overwatch-esports-deal\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"ESPN in Overwatch eSports Deal\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/\",\"name\":\"TVUSA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvusa\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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