Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham no longer works for Twitch and has decided to open up about the streaming platform’s relationship with the Overwatch League during a candid stream.
djWHEAT is the former director of creative development at Twitch and became known in the streaming scene for being outspoken on a variety of issues within the space and beyond it. The Overwatch League has been struggling to get viewership and support of late, but djWHEAT apparently didn’t have any interest in the Overwatch League right from the start.
During a personal stream, djWHEAT said that he was opposed to Twitch signing a $100 million deal with the Overwatch League when the franchise-driven pro Overwatch esport was initially starting up.
djWHEAT has been streaming on his own channel on Twitch now that he’s no longer an employee at the streaming platform. One of his first streams was all about the behind-the-scenes details of Overwatch League’s initial deal with Twitch before the league made the switch to YouTube.
djWHEAT didn’t believe in Overwatch as an esport. djWHEAT told viewers that he lived with Kevin Lin, Twitch’s head of esports, at the time. He told Lin that Overwatch League was “f—— dumb” and would not be a success. He said that Overwatch League’s concept would “never work.”
After seeing details of Blizzard’s plans for the Overwatch League, djWHEAT personally felt that Overwatch League was attempting to run before it could even walk. Every time Twitch would bring up a possible streaming deal with the OWL, djWHEAT would say that it was “stupid.”
“Every single person who worked on the team at that time can confirm that they got tired of me talking about how horrible of a f—— deal this was for a year and a half,” djWHEAT said.
According to djWHEAT, 11 members of his staff were eventually laid off due to the Overwatch League deal costing “a lot of money.” Overwatch has since moved to YouTube, as well as have Call of Duty League streams.
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