Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch League has announced 12 teams for its inaugural season, and over the last month or so, it’s unveiled each squad’s banner colors, logos, and names. Today, Optic Gaming announced that its team is the Houston Outlaws.
The Outlaws’ logo features revolvers that suggest the classic Texan longhorn skull, along with the trademark bright green Optic team color. Optic is a Texas-based esports organization with teams that compete in shooters like Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, though it also plays Dota 2 competitively. It recently took the $1.5 million top prize at the Call of Duty World League Championship. According to a Nielsen report, it’s one of the three most popular North American esports teams, along with Cloud9 and Team Liquid.
The Overwatch League takes its cue from traditional sports, structuring its organization with city-based teams and offering participating players a guaranteed yearly salary of $50,000. It’s an attempt by Blizzard to build Overwatch up into a successful esport.
Though the game has generated over $1 billion in revenue and boasts over 30 million players, it’s had a somewhat shaky journey as a competitive sport. A few teams have dropped their Overwatch rosters, such as Ninjas in Pyjamas and Splyce, citing that the esport scene just hasn’t been growing as quickly as they’d hoped.
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The Overwatch League preseason starts on December 6, and season kicks off on January 10.
