There are two reasons why someone would want to leave a brand such as the OWL. It's either monetary compensation or disagreement with the Overwatch leadership and production team. In this piece, you will find out why did MonteCristodecide to leave Overwatch League and what are his next moves.
Who is Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles?
If you have been following the esports industry, you have definitely heard about MonteCristo. He is a veteran when it comes to casting.
As for the Overwatch League, Christopher joined the roster back in 2016. He was the main caster for the first two seasons.
Before Overwatch, MonteCristo worked on various other esports tasks. Christopher started his career as a coach in the CLG's (Counter Logic Gaming) League of Legends team.
After that, he went over to South Korea where he worked as a caster. On top of that, Christopher also co-owned an esports team. Sadly, his team lost the spot in the League of Legends' North American League after Riot ruled that there were several terms violations.
When it comes to MonteCristo's popularity, you can see that he is clearly a very popular figure in the esports circles. At the time of writing, he boasts more than 300,000 followers on Twitter.
Why did MonteCristo leave the Overwatch League?
First and foremost, Christopher is not the only person that left the Overwatch League. Alongside him, Erik "DoA" Lonnquist and Chris Puckett also decided to part ways with the organization.
The main question here is, why did they decide to leave? From what we were able to find out in The Washington Post interview, all of these casters took to heart that Nate Nanzer(founding father of the Overwatch League) left the team and joined up with Epic Games, Fortnite to be more precise.
After Nate Nanzer moved on, MonteCristo felt that the OWL did not have anyone on the team who was really into esports hence why there was no hope for him there.
Furthermore, Christopher stated in his interview this:
"Nate leaving was really hard because he was the linchpin of understanding the game and the audience".
On top of that, he claimed that money had nothing to do with his move. He simply did not see himself working for this company anymore as they had totally different goals.
MonteCristo put a lot of emphasis on the "star building" process, but barely anyone listened. Do you really think that Overwatch is not focusing enough on the individual plays of certain players and that some of these guys deserve more recognition?
Let us know!
What's next for the Overwatch League Season 3?
If you are a die-hard fan of the OWL, you will be glad to hear that new casters have already been announced. Andrew "ZP" Rush, Jacob "JAKE" Lyon, and Scott "Custa" Kennedy will try their best to bring you closer to this FPS title.
The third season of the OWL will play out all over the globe. Home and away matches will take place in 19 cities in total.
There is also $5 million up for grabs.
What does the future hold for Christopher?
If you have been following MoneCristo's Twitter, you can find out that he is on the lookout for a new gig. Since he is well-versed in various topics, finding a job for himself should not be a problem.
However, Christopher decided to ask his fans for an opinion. This is how his straw poll looks like:
- Summoning Insight for the whole year – 5,083 votes
- Countdown of MonteCristo (best LoL games around the world of every week) – 3,942 votes
- Podcast on the business/industry of esports – 3,220 votes
- Interview old school esports people on their crazy stories from 5-20 years ago – 2,581 votes
- Discussions/reviews of films/video games – 2,172 votes
- Retro-gaming tournaments with other casters/pro players – 1,636 votes
- Narrative board game weekly sessions (Pandemic, Kingdom Death: Monster, etc.) – 1,094 votes
All in all, the future is definitely bright for Monte since he already teamed up with a very popular esports franchise, Cloud9 where he will work as a content creator. This will allow him to create content that he likes and enjoys making.
