As seen on Billy Penn

 

The Comcast-owned Overwatch League team is currently based in California

Philly’s newest sports team has it all – experienced coaches, devoted fans, and lively commentators watching their every move on live broadcasts. Watch for just a moment, and you’ll soon realize it’s way more extreme than other sports you’re used to: Explosions, giant mech suits and aerial fights abound. Though it sounds exceedingly dangerous, each match takes place on a screen far detached from reality. Also, the winning team takes home a million dollars. Welcome to esports!

The Philadelphia Fusion is an international esports team made up of 12 people who share the same passion: Playing Overwatch. Overwatch is a team-based, online shooting game for the PC, PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, where the main concept is generally pretty simple – two teams of six fight to capture a control point and keep the other team from taking it back, or defend and escort the “payload” such as a truck carrying goods from one side of the playfield to the other while fending off attackers. If you have played the ever-popular Team Fortress 2, this will all sound quite familiar to you.

Despite the simple objective, there are infinite levels of complexity involved. There are more than 20 “maps,” or playing fields, to compete on with different elevations, scenery, chokepoints and hiding spots. Players select a “hero” from a roster of 26 different characters separated into four distinct roles, like healing damage done to teammates or attacking on the front lines. Each hero has their own unique abilities, weaponry and playing style – so with every combination of heroes selected on a six-player team, players must adapt to changing environments, enemy team rosters and making sure their own team is well balanced.

You might think it’s silly, but 10 million viewers tuned in to watch the first week’s matches alone. The team is owned by Comcast Spectacor, who also own the Flyers – the teams even share the black and orange uniform colors. The team’s president is Tucker Roberts, son of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. Comcast chose Wahoo’s in University City to host the first official watching party of Fusion’s first match on stage against the Houston Outlaws on Jan. 11th, and hundreds of people showed up thanks to the spread of social media marketing and word of mouth.

“You would have thought you were watching the Superbowl, because the way the people were reacting, when Fusion got a kill…it was crazy,” said Sean Rinko, a manager at Wahoo’s. Since then, Wahoo’s has hosted live streams of each Philadelphia Fusion match.

“That Thursday was our biggest turnout – we had tents up on our patio, so we were at max capacity. We actually had to stop letting people in,” Rinko said. “It’s kind of like any other sporting event, you know, like if there’s a soccer game on, we have a lot of people come watch soccer. So it’s all just kind of part of the vibe we have going here. It’s nice and it’s fun, and most of the regulars, well at first they were like ‘What are you watching, video games?’ And after they watched a little bit and they found out, hey, this is Philly’s team, (their attitude) definitely changed.”

The Fusion team competes twice a week in the Overwatch League, now in its inaugural season. The 12 OWL teams are named after different regions and divided into the Pacific and the Atlantic divisions, but they all currently play out of the Blizzard Esports Arena in Burbank, CA.

Soon, the plan is to move the teams to local home arenas for each region. “There are plans to move to Philly, but the timing is dependent on so many factors,” head coach Yann “Kirby” Luu wrote in an email interview. “We are excited for the future and can’t wait to get to Philly. We have already seen the passion the fans have for esports. Even though we represent the city of Philadelphia, I’ve yet to go there myself, so really it’s the entire idea of being there, close to the local Fusion fans, that I’m excited about.  Philly has the best fans in all of sports.”

Luu and assistant coaches Se-Hwi “NamedHwi” Go and Elliot Hayes advise the Philadelphia Fusion team between matches. Their diverse roster boasts four members from South Korea, and one member each from Finland, Russia, Canada, Spain, France, Israel, Sweden and the U.K.

“We went through a very extensive trial process in all three major regions (North America, Europe, and Korea) to find the best available players, but also players that we thought would work well together, and make the best possible team,” Luu wrote. Despite the geographical differences, the players communicate in a common language. “Even though we have players from many different countries, all of the European players are used to playing with people from different nationalities, and therefore communicating in English. So the challenge is more about bridging the gap between our Korean and Western players, which we’re trying to achieve by also having a multicultural coaching staff, and providing English tutoring to those who need it.”

Philly Fusion player Gael “Poko” Gouzerch from Nîmes, France is known for skillfully deploying his “ult,” or ultimate move, as the character D.Va. He’s caught the world by storm with his flashy self-destruct move, to the point where several articles have gone in-depth to study his technique and have renamed the move the “Poko Bomb.” Of course, watching players compete on the big stage for huge sums of money, like him, is enticing to anyone with a copy of the game.

To become a pro gamer, it takes “a lot of sacrifices and dedication – sometimes your friends are gonna ask you to party Sunday night but you have scrims (practice matches) so you can’t,” Gouzerch wrote in an email interview. “You have to be able to put your friends and family on hold to be the best. I started by playing with friends of mine at Overwatch and I was spotted thanks to my good performance in tournaments. My daily life hasn’t changed that much because I still have to wake up, practice, eat, practice and sleep but now it’s in LA. We compete every week on the sickest stage and we are paid a lot.”

“Poko” is happy to know about local support for the Fusion here. “We didn’t expect so much support from Philly fans, we are very proud to represent such a beautiful city and we are gonna do our best to make them proud,” he wrote. “It’s not up to me, but if I had to decide I would definitely go to Philly sooner. I’ve heard they have some amazing cheesesteaks, and the Eagles are the dream squad.”

Jun Hwuy An, a sophomore at UPenn, is studying for his BA at the Wharton School of Business and LALS at the College of Arts and Sciences. He’s also the Overwatch Liaison chair at the University of Pennsylvania eSports Association, an organization with 220 active members that started in Sept. 2016. Along with his friend and Events Chair, Ryan Nguyen, they create esports events for interested UPenn students and help coach the competitive team.

“I have watched all the games thus far, and I think Philly Fusion is doing pretty good in their games,” An wrote in an email interview. “The one critique I have is their energy – when they win, they are energized and more focused, but once losses hit them, they seem to get sluggish, slow down, and fall apart. This was crucial during their nail-biting match against the LA Gladiators. I do not think they should have been reverse-swept at all; in fact, they should have carried their momentum and destroyed the Gladiators in the third match. Use that energy, boys.”

Some criticize esports for being all-digital. “Esports is essentially like traditional sports, sans the physicality of it,” An wrote. “Both commit a tremendous time and effort to mastering their craft and they sacrifice a bit of their wellbeing for what they love. Esports players practice, they utilize teamwork and incredible player skill to win games, and they must be examples of good citizens for their viewers. Of course, esports has blown up recently thanks to the likes of Overwatch, but again, it is still a sport that in its essence, it accumulates all of the features of sports and sporty behavior. One thing that’s cool about esports, however, is that most viewers of esports play the game while most people who watch football, for example, don’t play football.”

The Fusion will compete throughout all four stages of Season 1 until it ends June 16th and the highest-performing teams will be announced to play the title matches. Two players are currently on the bench: Simon “snillo” Ekström will begin play in March when he is old enough to legally compete at age 18. Su-Min “SADO” Kim, who was fined and suspended for an account boosting infraction, won’t be competing until Stage 4 in May.

Fusion suffered a particularly tough loss to the LA Gladiators after they were initially up by two points in their Jan. 18 match. “We’re a bit disappointed about our loss versus the Gladiators because we feel like we should’ve been able to close that game since we were up 2-0, but the Gladiators punished our mistakes and came back,” Luu said. “Overall we’re not completely satisfied, since we think we have a pretty high skill ceiling with this roster, but considering our bumpy pre-season, we’re not in too bad a spot.” Luckily, the Fusion came back after that with a 3-2 win in their Jan. 25 game against New York Excelsior, marking New York’s first loss in the league to date.

 

Stage 1 matches have concluded with Fusion’s 6 match wins versus 4 losses. The Philadelphia Fusion face off against the Boston Uprising in their first match of Stage 2 Feb. 22 at 9 p.m. Watch live online at overwatchleague.com or twitch.tv/overwatchleague, or head over to Wahoo’s at 3180 Chestnut St. to watch among fans.