Mentioned in this article
- The Paris Eternal has canceled its Overwatch League (OWL) homestand in April after France bans gatherings of more than 1,000 people.
- The event was due to take place at the Zénith Paris, with the one other European team London Spitfire to hold its first homestand at the SSE Arena Wembley.
- This is the first OWL event to be canceled outside of Asia, following all four Chinese homestands and the Seoul Dynasty homestands.
The Paris Eternal, one of two European Overwatch League franchises, has canceled its homestand event due to take place on April 11-12. This follows a ministerial order in France banning gatherings of more than 1,000 people, in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The Zénith Paris, which would’ve hosted the event, stated it would not cancel any of its planned concerts over the next 15 days.
The other European team, the London Spitfire, has not made any announcement regarding its planned event at the SSE Arena Wembley on March 28-29. The Esports Observer contacted the Paris Eternal to learn if it would be having closed matches in a separate venue, and will update this story if we hear back.
Since the start of 2020, six Overwatch League teams have successfully run homestand weekends in their respective markets. However, the four teams based in China, as well as the Seoul Dynasty, have all canceled their respective events. The five Asia-based franchises all have 0-0 win/loss records on the OWL league table and were all due to travel to Paris for the now-canceled homestand.
So far, no teams in the United States or Canada have called off homestands. The Washington Justice, which held the “Battle for the East Coast” event last weekend, did enact several added hygiene measures and shifted the meet-and-greet experience to a Q&A with players.
