The Overwatch League has become a rather successful esports association. The games usually draw in several thousands of viewers, and the matches themselves are typically exciting and frenetic. However, it looks like the League will be undergoing some changes, as their commissioner has just abandoned them.

Nate Nanzer, the OWL commissioner, has just been poached by Epic Games. Epic has lately been making a lot of enemies in the gaming industry. In just a few months they’ve declared war on Steam, snatching up every game they can to become an Epic Games Store exclusive. Now it looks like they want to move in on the esports world as well, as Nanzer will apparently be in charge of Fortnite’s competitive scene.

Nanzer was instrumental in the creation of the OWL, as well as its ongoing success. It’s pretty obvious that Epic is hoping Nanzer can help further their own esports ambitions. Fortnite is already a pretty big deal in esports, considering the Fortnite World Cup has a $100 million prize pool, which is just an obscene amount of money.

Epic issued a short statement on Nanzer's hiring, simply saying "we're excited to welcome Nate to the Epic Games team, where he'll be working with us on competitive Fortnite," which basically confirms his new role in the company. While it seems like Fortnite will be Nanzer's main priority, Epic also recently purchased Psyonix, who created Rocket League, which also has a pretty healthy esports scene. So it’s possible that Nanzer may dip his toes into that game’s competitive world as well.

As for who will replace Nanzer as the commissioner of the Overwatch League, it seems like a successor has already been chosen. Pete Vlastelica has been announced as the new commissioner, which makes sense seeing as how he was already the President and CEO of Activision Blizzard's esports leagues. He was already working closely with the league, so sliding him into the position of commissioner is kind of a no brainer.

This isn't the first time Epic has snatched a major player away from a competing game company. Back in April they hired Jason West, the Co-Founder of Infinity Ward and Respawn, a big name in the world of first person shooters.  It seems like they now want to go head to head with Activision in the esports world, and stealing away the commissioner of the OWL is a pretty bold first move.

Epic seems perfectly content with the way it's ruffling feathers in the gaming industry, even despite the various issues that the Epic Games Store has been having as of late. Now with Nanzer on board, there's a good chance that Fortnite's competitive scene could grow to be an even bigger deal than the OWL.

Let's just hope that their esports leagues are more organized and better run than their sales are.