She thought it could become something of a tradition for her and her husband. Vierra also had a personal connection last year’s Fuel home games took place on her anniversary weekend, and the original schedule had 2020 matches in Dallas on the same weekend. Like their Paris counterparts, Fahrenheit 214° had worked with Fuel staff to create their own seating section to make the 2020 home games a bit more boisterous. “I’ve been to Cowboys games, and Texas A&M games, and it was that same level of energy from everyone, just for a video game,” Vierra says. As one of the leaders of Fahrenheit 214°, a group of Dallas Fuel supporters, she helped organize watch parties at local bars and restaurants for the last two years and also attended the very first OWL home game last year in Dallas. It’s something that had already proved to be a success in the handful of local matches played through 2019, and Cayden Vierra was among those excited for games to return Dallas. Many of OWL’s most hardcore supporters were looking forward to a year filled with live matches in their home cities. “For a few days we were a bit shell-shocked.”īut it wasn’t just the league that was forced to adapt. After a rocky beginning to the year, the league has been picking up steam: last month, a peak of 90,000 viewers tuned in to watch one of the final regular season matches between San Francisco and Philadelphia on YouTube.

But after the pandemic hit, and in-person events became impossible, the league was forced to shift to an online format, which included building out a remote production studio. Things started out strong with events in New York, Dallas, Philadelphia, Houston, and Washington, DC. After two years of existing mostly in a studio in Los Angeles, 2020 was the year that the league planned to fulfill its goal with home-and-away matches played in cities across the globe. This year was supposed to be a big one for OWL. After that first hit we got back on our feet and started thinking ‘Well this isn’t happening, but what can we do?’” “For a few days we were a bit shell-shocked. “We took a hit,” Blanquart tells The Verge. They also planned trips to watch the Eternal play in London and Toronto, and they hoped to organize watch parties for fans all across France.īut then the pandemic happened, and all of those plans went away.

The group worked with the Eternal to have their own seating section during games in Paris so that they could lead chants and cheers. As president of The Rooster Club, a supporters group for the Overwatch League’s Paris Eternal, she spent a lot of time thinking about what the fan group could do for the new season, where each of the league’s 20 teams would host home matches in local arenas for the first time.

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