Blizzard revealed which teams it would partner with for the Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS) and will provide new cosmetics for these teams.
Blizzard introduced the OWCS Team Partner Program for its 2025 season, providing an additional revenue stream for teams through in-game cosmetics and MTX purchases. Overwatch will create team branded skins for partnered teams which fans can purchase, and a portion of profits will be shared with these teams.
Nine different teams were revealed as partner teams, spanning across three different regions: North America, Asia, and EMEA. Here are the teams you can expect to be featured for the Overwatch World Championship Series 2025 season.
New Overwatch team cosmetics are coming
There are nine teams participating in the OWCS Team Partner Program. These teams will all receive new cosmetics over the course of the year.
North America:
- Spacestation
- Team Liquid
EMEA:
- Gen.G
- Twisted Minds
- Virtus.pro
Asia:
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- T1
- Team Falcons
- Zeta Division
- Crazy Raccoon
Sad day for the @SFShock! Somehow despite being the winningest team of all time, the most popular NA team, crushing it in merch and mtx sales throughout OWL, partnering with colleges, supporting OWCS Season 1 as a NA team and the tier 2/college scene, and probably investing more…
— Andy Miller (@amiller) December 19, 2024
There were some notable snubs with this announcement, namely, NRG which operated the popular and well-performing San Francisco Shock. (Team owner Andy Miller expressed shock online that despite being one of the most successful teams and doing well with merch and other in-game cosmetics, they were not chosen for a partnership.)
The Toronto Defiant, another notable team within Overwatch esports, opted not to apply for the OWCS Team Partner Program as they believed the revenue split would not be financially viable for the team. Former team owner of the Toronto Defiant criticized Blizzard during an interview with AVRL, believing that Blizzard is not sufficiently pushing Overwatch for esports and squandering its potential.
Overwatch’s previous esports venture, the Overwatch League, had implemented a similar program before. A percentage of sales generated from purchases of in-game currency were allocated to each team.
The OWCS Dallas Major event last May drew a strong 125,146 viewers during the match between Crazy Raccoon and Toronto Defiant. Despite strong viewership, the fate of Overwatch esports may still be in the air as overall Overwatch Twitch viewership is down thanks to Marvel Rivals.