The last Overwatch League team is no more... at least for now.
While the San Francisco Shock returned in a form as NRG Shock, Toronto Defiant's rebrand to Toronto Ultra puts the nail in the coffin of Overwatch League's experiment with geolocation. Defiant's parent company, OverActive Media, also own and operate the Toronto Ultra in Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty League. This name change unifies the brands for the Esports World Cup, as OverActive Media, through their KOI brand, is part of the Esports World Cup Foundation Club Support Program (CSP). The CSP grants large stipends to 30 selected esports organizations to enter as many EWC titles as possible, including Overwatch 2.
Currently, OverActive Media operates esports teams under different names in different games, owing to the company's purchase of different esports teams at different games. They are MAD Lions KOI, in League of Legends, Movistar KOI in Valorant, Toronto Ultra in Call of Duty, and Toronto Defiant in Overwatch.
This rebrand comes as part of OAM co-founder and CEO Adam Adamou's stated goal of unifying the company's brands across various esports titles. In an interview with Yiska of GGRecon, he said that one brand ultimately would win out, rather than attempting to merge the brands (e.g., "Toronto MAD Lions" or "KOI Ultra"). In the end, it appears that the Ultra branding beat out the Defiant branding.
Alongside the Overwatch announcement, Toronto Ultra also announced a Teamfight Tactics roster for Esports World Cup.
Of the change, Kryix Contributor Shah says it is "not that big of a deal as long as Toronto is still incorporated. It would just feel like a team rename. If they take Toronto out though I'd be devastated."
In a tweet, Toronto Defiant confirmed that the change was only temporary for Esports World Cup.
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