*By Jacqueline Corba*
The commissioner of the Overwatch League has some thoughts on what makes the esports competition so popular: attaching teams to cities to get fans excited.
"What you see in esports is the fandom around Overwatch Leagueーaround these cities. It manifests in exactly the same way that you see fandom manifest in traditional sports," said Nate Nanzer in an interview with Cheddar from the Cannes Lions festival Tuesday. "We wanted to make an esport league that was really easy to follow and really easy to be a fan of."
And so far the strategy seems to have worked. The league, which was announced just last January, has already [inked a $90 million, two-year](https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2018/05/24/activision-blizzard-shops-new-deals-for-overwatch.html), exclusive deal with gaming site Twitch to stream all of the league's games. And the inaugural season's Grand Finals sold out more than 20,000 seats at Brooklyn's Barclays Center in a matter of days.
"We are excited to bring it to Brooklyn and show the biggest city in the world what kind of show we can put on," Nanzer said
Six of twelve teams in the league qualified for this season's playoffs: New York Excelsior, Los Angeles Valiant, Boston Uprising, Los Angeles Gladiators, London Spitfire, and Philadelphia Fusion. The Grand Finals take place July 27-July 28 at the [Barclay's Center](http://www.barclayscenter.com/events/detail/overwatch-league-grand-finals-2018).
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/inside-the-growth-of-esports).
Darden, the parent company of chain restaurants like Olive Garden and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, beat Wall Street estimates in its latest earnings report.
A former Facebook executive pled guilty to stealing more than $4 million from the company while she was employed there.
Rising safety concerns over water bead products marketed to kids have prompted major retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart to pull some toys off their shelves.
The Congressional Budget Office said Friday it expects inflation to nearly hit the Federal Reserve's 2% target rate in 2024, as overall growth is expected to slow and unemployment is expected to rise into 2025, according to updated economic projections for the next two years.
Intel is out with a new product to challenge other big players in the space like Nvidia and AMD.
Stocks fell after the opening bell Friday but will end on another positive week.
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Americans picked up their spending from October to November as the unofficial holiday season kicked off, underscoring that shoppers still have power to keep buying.
The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate dropped below 7% to its lowest level since early August, another boost for prospective homebuyers who have largely been held back by sharply higher borrowing costs and heightened competition for relatively few homes for sale.
Mortgage rates have dropped below 7% for the first time since the middle of August.
