Talking OWCS 2025 with Bailey McCann: “If you want to play Overwatch esports, just do it. You’ll love it and you’ll get captured by it.”

DreamHack Stockholm is hosting the inaugural Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS) World Finals where fans are cheering on their favorite teams and celebrating a huge announcement about the circuit: the arrival of OWCS 2025! Leading the charge for the North American (NA) and Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) scenes is program lead Bailey McCann, and esports.gg sat down with her for an interview! We went into the power of an open Overwatch 2 esports ecosystem, future storylines, and how it all connects to building community and a sustainable circuit.

According to the official announcement, OWCS 2025 will double down on open competition. The returning circuit will actually kick off with the OWCS Open Qualifier in January. To McCann, this event will ensure that anyone can compete for a spot in the season, and even if they happen to miss out, they'll still have additional chances through FACEIT Opens.

"I think the reception has been really great with our 2025 program," McCann told esports.gg. "I think we're taking some steps to help provide more consistency for our players. Integrating FACEIT into our programming is really awesome [and] we're able to provide a space where people are able to continue to play in our ecosystem and have this consistent competition with our regular seasons kind of moving in between each other."

She continued, noting how important it is to create consistent storylines in the new OWCS open ecosystem. By putting amateur and established players under one umbrella, the Promotion & Relegation tournaments, in particular, will create high-stakes matches where amateur teams challenge veterans for the chance to make their way up. Additionally, with more broadcast days on the horizon, viewers will get the chance to know more about the teams and players.

"We're keeping these players in there so we [can] keep telling the storylines. With Promotion & Regulation, as you mentioned, we're able to have these really cool storylines where we have these teams, [going] like, 'I gotta fight for my spot.' We think those are just such high-stakes matches where everything is on the line. It's just super, super exciting," she said.

In terms of another standout feature of OWCS 2025, the Team Partner Program will allow nine teams across NA, EMEA, and Asia to receive a percentage of the proceeds gained from in-game crowdfunding bundles. This means fans will be able to more easily show off their love for Overwatch 2 esports. McCann shared her thoughts on how this program and fans of specific teams could affect the longevity of the overall scene, saying that team partners can help build stronger communities.

"It's a self-fulfilling cycle, which is just really awesome," she added. "It allows our fans to engage in our ecosystem, directly support their favorite team, build that brand equity, feel like there's ways they can both contribute, participate, and just support their favorite teams and players."

To McCann, live events like DreamHack Dallas and DreamHack Stockholm create magical moments for fans and players, too. Some attendees might be meeting and seeing each other in person for the first time. Additionally, since DreamHack events welcome lots of activities and games beyond Overwatch 2, they create a type of atmosphere where even casual and new spectators of the OWCS matches can become lifelong fans.

"Just across the board, we want to support more live events," she said. "We know that this is where the magic happens. We can tell the cool stories, and a lot of our fans get to have magical moments where they meet all their friends — or even their family comes, and it just makes esports real for them."

She continued, "The energy is contagious, and they just get wrapped up in that energy and they walk over there and they just start watching it. And even on top of that, so many people say, 'Hey, I've never been to a live event before.' We have the voice actor of Hazard, Conor, here today. It's one of his first LANs or live events, and he's just enamored by the whole event. And I think it's so cool because there's so many stories like that where they're having these magical moments. It just really makes you a lifetime fan of the game or an esport."

As for parting words, McCann encouraged everyone to try competing in Overwatch 2 esports — be it through the Open Qualifier in January 2025, Calling All Heroes Challenger Series, or the Calling All Heroes Rising division. It might be intimidating at first, but it's always a really fun time.

That's all for now. Stick around on esports.gg for more Overwatch 2 interviews, news, and updates!