Canadian OWWC broadcast allegedly cut off because they didn't lose quickly enough
During Blizzcon, the broadcast of the Overwatch World Cup match between Canada and South Korea was abruptly cut short after the match overlapped with the opening ceremony.
Canadian players took to Twitter and vented their frustration about their only World Cup match not being watchable to viewers inside the arena. In the aftermath of the event, main tank for the US national team and streamer Matthew “super” DeLisi alleged that the conflict arose as the organiser’s planning expected Canada to lose more quickly.
Team Canada feels slighted
After a four-year COVID-induced break, the Overwatch World Cup found its way back to Blizzcon with Saudi Arabia emerging as the surprise winner in a nail-biter final against China.
During the playoffs of the event, played in a single elimination format, every match counted and thus teams who lost in the first round would’ve therefore made the travel for just this one game.
For team Canada, that honour was even cut shorter as the broadcast for the match was interrupted during the final map with not even the live audience in attendance able to catch the action on the screens around the Overwatch hall.
Due to scheduling, the match had overlapped with the start time of the opening ceremony for Blizzcon and the decision was made to prioritise it over the live match.
After the match, William "Crimzo" Hernandez took to Twitter to address his frustration with the decision, writing: “Insanely disrespectful to have broadcast randomly cut the rest of our final map because of shitty scheduling.”
Later, the support player added: “It's a dream for all players to be able to play on stage and in front of fans. This was the first time on stage for most of us and it's completely ruined. We also had to skip doing a walkout to stage (which every other team is doing) and woke up at 6 a.m. for this. What a joke.”
Super claims to have been told the reason
Returning from Blizzcon, back-to-back Overwatch League champion super shared his experiences from the World Cup with his stream. When asked about the scheduling decision, super disclosed that he had talked to a Blizzard employee about the situation.
“I was talking to someone and they were like: ‘Yeah… we kind of expected a 3-0, so we just planned it before so it wouldn’t cut directly into the opening ceremony but then Canada ended up winning a map so we didn’t really know what to do’,” super shared.
His stream chat appeared confused about whether or not Super was playing a bit but he later qualified that it was indeed what he was told. “Right hand to God, someone at Blizzard told me that.”
While South Korea was considered one of the favourites to take the event, the team ended up losing to China in the semi-finals and later even failed to reach the podium, losing to Finland in the 3rd place match.
