boston-up:

mvpmunchkin:

delfyi:

owlspace:

delfyi:

So while everyone was asleep Toronto Esports just exploded. Details are not out completely, and I expect we will hear more but let’s break down what we know so far.

Toronto Esports is the Contenders (tier 2) team of the Boston Uprising under The Kraft Group. They tweeted out this:

They have basically been told that there name and brand cannot exist anymore because the new Toronto Defiant OWL team have “exclusive naming rights”. Toronto esports has existed since 2016 and partnered with Boston Uprising in 2018. TOesports have a partnership but they are also their own organization in their own right.

They also tweeted that they were talking about moving to esports in Fortnite or CSGO – so its possible that Toronto esports will continue but no longer with Overwatch.

It was all very confusing and many people on Twitter took this as that Toronto esports was just abandoning their players- and also tweeting quite callously about it. (honestly, their tweets sounded pretty angry and bitter, like who says good riddance)

So what will happen with there players currently on their roster for the next contenders season? Huk responded, saying this:

Everything just seemed kind of crazy- it looks to me like Toronto Esports Twitter just kind of went rogue and said crazy things and freaked people out on twitter. When in reality it seems like nothing has truly changed and Toronto esports will just get a new name and a new logo. They still have this seasons contenders slot and all of the players and staffs contracts.

Its a little shitty that Blizzard let them know like 6 weeks in advance that they have to change there brand- because that takes time and money to have to redo. It’s also shitty because – again- Blizzard is putting their OWL  teams ahead of their contenders (t2) team. How can an OWL team have “rights” to the name of a major city??

In this essay i will… 

Thanks for reading.  

yeah it sucks that they let them with a short amount of time, but this was bound to happen. it was super weird in the first place that boston had a toronto contenders name and it would just be confusing if defiant decides to get an academy team too

if boston still owns the players and the players’ contracts then i really don’t see the issue. having a breakdown on twitter doesn’t help anyone bc the change makes total sense imo lol

I def think TOesports acted unprofessional on twitter- before this breakdown their twitter was being criticized for something else. So i feel like over all there social media person just sucks.

I also dont know why boston has a toronto contenders name (it is a little strange, maybe just cause HUK is from Canada and he wanted a partnership??)- but from what I understand it is unlike other OWL teams academy team who are clearly affiliated with owl teams. 

Also TOesports has existed long before owl even began, and a Toronto OWL team was only announced like a couple months ago?? I think their twitter was venting frustration at the fact that Blizzard is expecting them to just roll over and do what they want even though this has been their brand for almost 3 years? Perhaps also frustrated that they are one of the only Canadian team in NA contenders and there being asked to basically delete that fact.

I am not trying to defend them- but i do sympathize- its more than just an inconvenience for them and its kind of a hit to the tier 2 scene – in a time where they are already making cuts. My point was more that i thought it was unfortunate that Blizzard will protect their OWL teams- because thats were the money is. and just leave their tier 2 teams out to dry. 

The person who acted out on the TOesports twitter (and on his personal twitter) was not just their social media person – it was the owner of them, Ryan Pallet. For the past few days he acted like an absolute unprofessional asshole to put it bluntly, picking fights with a lot of people on twitter and on the BU discord – which even caused the shut down of the TOesports channel on that discord. 

My guess is that Toronto Defiant pushed Blizzard to this decision because they want their name protected – there were already people confused because they thought that TD is affiliated with TOesports, just because they’re both from the same city – and that could lead to people associating this whole mess with TD even if they have nothing to do with it. They paid a few million dollars for that name and that franchise so it’s understandable and within their rights to demand that.

And it’s not like Blizzard demanded that they have to rename their entire organization – they only wanted that they rebrand their Contenders team. Instead of doing that Pallet decided to threw a fit on Twitter and that TOesports will leave the competetive Overwatch scene. The only reason the players will be taken care of and won’t suffer from that decision is because the contracts for staff and players are luckily with Boston Uprising. (also the reason why BU had a TOesports as their academy team is because instead of building their own Contenders team from scratch they went into a partnership with an already existing team – and HuK was part of TOesports before he went to Boston afaik.) 

While Blizzard has done a lot of stupid things to the T2 scene lately I don’t think they did anything wrong here – rebranding the team would have had little to no negative consequences for the team, it’s just that Ryan Pallet decided to be an ass about it and act like a little child.  

yeah skyfoxes rebranded and it was fine

toronto esports should just call themselves toes imo