Pete Vlastelica As New Commissioner For Overwatch League
There is quite a bit of excitement and expectations as Activision Blizzard has made a surprise announcement. It has announced that Pete Vlastelica will be the new commissioner of Overwatch League. It would be pertinent to mention here that the former Commissioner Nate Nanzer, earlier this year, left Overwatch League and he joined Epic Games. It also needs to be understood that this is the first time that the news pertaining to the departure of Nanzer has been announced by Activision Blizzard. The game publisher made this announcement in May. Vlastelica has joined Activation Blizzard as the CEO and President for Esports way back in September 2016.
Some Information About Pete Vlastelica
Let us try and have a look at Pete Vlastelica. He is a graduate from Stanford University and has a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy. He went to take up an MBA course at the University of California. This happened five years after he completed his graduation at Stanford University. He did his MBA from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He got in entrepreneurship mode right away. He founded, Yarkbarker, a sports media startup. Over the years is has grown to become one of the biggest sports blog networks on the web. This company was later acquired by Fox Sports Interactive in the year 2010. Pete was appointed as the Senior Vice President and also as the General Manager. During his stint at Fox Sports, he also served as Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and also served as Executive Vice President taking care of Digital Strategy.
What Does Pete Have To Say?
Pete Vlastelica states that over the years he has been able to develop good relationships with the owners and he also got to know the products quite well. When the vacancy for a commissioner came up, it was important to have somebody who carried with him a large and broad view of the various opportunities and challenges that the league is facing. Further, it also needed somebody who had the right relationships for helping things to move forward quickly. When all these above things were considered, Pete Vlastelica feels that the owners felt that he was the best choice. Pete also has his priorities right as far as his ensuing role as Commissioner is concerned. He strongly believes that his priorities continue to be for the fans, partners, owners, and employees. He also believes in developing the right relationships so that things move forward in the right direction and quite rapidly too. He particularly wants all the stakeholders of Overwatch League to be happy.
Overwatch League Of Activision Blizzard
It has been reported on TEO and the news is not good. The overall viewership for Overwatch League has been moving downwards when compared to the last year. There could be quite a few reasons for this and lesser viewership on Twitch is certainly a reason. Twitch is one of the main outlets as far as esports-related content is concerned. There are others who believe that this could be one of the main reasons for decline in franchising in the OWL. There is a valid reason for this too and it is because teams are being named based on a particular location. This is not the case with other esports leagues where the teams are named based on their affiliations to a specific organization and its brand. There are a few others who have another take on this. They believe that while Overwatch is great fun to play, there is nothing much in it as far as spectators are concerned. The competitive matches are considered difficult for new comers and watchers who are getting in for the first time.
One More Change Has Been Made
The above announcement pertaining to Vlastelica also comes with the appointment of one more game-commissioner. CDL or Call of Duty League is the new name that has been given to CWL Pro League. The job of CDL Commissioner has been given to Johanna Faries.
How Will Pete Vlastelica Perform?
As OWL new commissioner, there is quite a bit of expectation from Pete Vlastelica. However, he does have some bad experiences as far as his previous choices are concerned. While he has to counter this negative image of his, he will most certainly be compared to Nate Nanzer, the former Commissioner.
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