Dallas Fuel and Houston Outlaws are bringing their Overwatch League rivalry to TV in new Lone Star Showdown - The Dallas Morning News

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The Dallas Fuel-Houston Outlaws rivalry is adding another chapter. And this one will reach across the state.

Both teams announced Thursday they’d be taking part in the Lone Star Showdown, a three-week rivalry series where the Fuel and Outlaws will face off in curated Overwatch exhibitions which will be later included in a docuseries aired across the state.

Matches, which start this Monday with smaller battles, will be streamed at noon each Monday online and later included as part of a behind-the-scenes series at noon on May 9, 16 and 23 on WFAA-TV Channel 8 in North Texas, KHOU-TV 11 in Houston, and in other cities like San Antonio and Waco.

The move provided opportunities for all parties to stretch into a different form of media. TEGNA, which covers 87% of the state with its television stations, wanted to bring something new to TV while the Fuel and Outlaws wanted to bring their unique product to television.

The Fuel recently beat the Outlaws, 3-2, in a hotly contest matched, but now they can reach an audience they wouldn’t normally in an easier-to-understand format. The three streaming sessions feature battles of one-on-one and three-on-three during Weeks 1 and 2, with a Best-of-7 series in Week 3.

Both teams discussed a way to collaborate back when the Overwatch League began in 2018, Envy Gaming President Geoff Moore told The Dallas Morning News on Thursday.

There were a “million things" to do that were more important than planning an exhibition outside of league play. So the idea of OWL’s budding rivals meeting to decide which squad was the best in Texas was shoveled to the back-burner. The Fuel, Outlaws and TEGNA then looked to the end of the 2020 season or before OWL’s fourth season for an event.

“And then the world changed," Moore said. "This COVID-19 thing swept in and we went from having five events to we can’t even go to our own office in a short time. So we got back together with TEGNA and they said ‘We have a lot less programming than we had two weeks ago, so maybe we should fast forward this.’”

The Fuel and Outlaws wanted to deliver where in a way no other esports teams had before. Their five-round thriller of an Overwatch League match last Sunday, which the Fuel won 3-2, showcased the intensity of their rivalry match and now they are going to give more of it, and on television.

The winner of the competition will be crowned the best team in the state.

“We wanted to create a campaign and series that could last over time," Moore said. "We wanted the drama and the storylines to build to create something that was almost bigger than a regular season match by having it be different, more diverse and last longer.”

Top players from each team will go head-to-head in one-on-one skills challenges, three-on-three elimination matches will be played, and the final event will include the Lone Star Showdown championship match on noon May 18.

Here’s a look at the streaming schedule, which can be found on either the Dallas Fuel or Houston Outlaws’ YouTube channels:

Stream Week 1

Monday, May 4 at 12-2 p.m. CST

1-on-1 skills challenges

3-on-3 elimination challenge

Stream Week 2

Monday, May 11 at 12-2 p.m. CST

1-on-1 skills challenges

3-on-3 elimination challenge

Stream Week 3

Monday, May 18 at 12-3:30 p.m. CST

Lone Star Showdown championship match

A three-part docuseries will be what is shown on television, with the first episode airing on May 9 at noon, the second on May 16 at noon and the final episode on May 23 at noon.

Viewers will get to see the best players in the world duel each other. The Fuel’s star damage dealer, Jang “Decay” Gui-un and Houston’s star DPS player Dante “Danteh” Cruz will have a battle on Tracer, followed by four more one-on-one’s during that first week.

“When you have two teams that are battling it out, the longer the competition, the more likely the better team will come out on top," Moore said. "We can’t ask the league to have us play eight times in a year so we devised something that was a cool, different way of looking at it.”

Pressure will be on during the challenge portion of the first two weeks, as the winners of each section (four in total) will have the ability to choose the map played in the final, standard Overwatch League-type match on May 18, which will be a best-of-seven series.

Find more Fuel stories from The Dallas Morning News here.

Find more esports stories from The Dallas Morning News here.

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