OWL fans outraged after Cheez-It commercial keeps interrupting matches
Blizzard EntertainmentOverwatch League fans were outraged and in disbelief after invasive Cheez-It promotions repeatedly got in the way of gameplay during the opening day of Season 3.
The OWL’s third season kicked off on February 8, 2020 with matches being played on YouTube Live instead of Twitch, where the League had spent its’ first two seasons.
Minor technical hiccups were to be expected, but fans what fans weren’t expecting were Cheez-It ads shoving “CRUNCH TIME” into their faces while match audio continued to play behind.
Like for real, is the whole stream team sleeping for this to happen? In the middle of a fight, cutting to an ad graphic and keeping it up for almost a minute. Unacceptable. #OWL2020 #OverwatchLeague #CrunchTime pic.twitter.com/ZwFAazH4SQ
— Jussi Lundelin (@rioichiFIN) February 8, 2020
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“CRUNCH TIME” got especially bad during the London Spitfire and New York Excelsior map and it took approximately no time at all for Overwatch fans to turn the whole thing into a meme.
The shiny new Overwatch League YouTube chat was quickly filled up with several different spams all inspired by “CRUNCH TIME” and we’ll probably see people using it for the rest of the season, knowing OWL fans and their history with stream chat.
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The meme spread like wildfire across the Overwatch community, with some players wondering which hero we’ll see get a commemorative Cheez-It Grooves skin this season (our money is on D.Va).
Overwatch meme lord Bad Pachimari was just one of many to make memes poking fun at the crunchy technical issues the League had, but as always theirs was one of the funniest and most relevant.
— Bad Pachimari (@BadPachimari) February 8, 2020
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The era of too much Crunch Time seems to have been worked out by Overwatch League staff during the London vs. New York match, with the ad no longer getting in the way.
But the Overwatch League does have a segment this year called “Crunch Time” (sponsored by Cheex-It) so maybe this whole “mistake” was really a tricky way of getting everyone on board for Season 3.
