The Overwatch League’s Dallas Fuel have officially released Félix “xQc” Lengyel. This comes on the heels of disciplinary action taken both by OWL and Fuel.

Earlier this year, xQc was suspended by OWL for four games and fined $2,000. Then his team took things a step further and suspended xQc for the rest of the first stage. Things apparently came to a head this weekend and the two parties have now “mutually agreed to part ways.”

xQc’s departure sent shock waves through the Overwatch community, with many people speculating over what the catalyst of his leaving was. 

The interesting and unusual thing is, there’s a decent chance that xQc wanted to leave so that he could go back to being a full-time streamer.

When a football player or basketball player gets released on the heels of disciplinary action, it’s easy enough to say that he was forced out. After all, being professional athletes is how those guys make a living.

In the case of xQc, he doesn’t actually need OWL or Fuel. In fact, he might be better off without them. He’s a wildly popular streamer and his fans love his general voice of toxicity, the very thing that got him fired from the Overwatch Legaue.

There’s a strong case to be made that OWL needs him more than he needs them. As one of the more notable players in the league, his departure will likely mean the departure of at least a few fans who watched just for him.

Of course OWL is more than xQc. He’s a relatively small part of the larger equation, but for a new league that needs all the attention it can get, losing an attraction like xQc could hurt.

Think about it like this. The Cleveland Cavaliers are tied for the most watched team in basketball. It isn’t because they have the largest fan-base though, they’re a small market team that most of the country wouldn’t care about at all, if it wasn’t for the fact that LeBron James was their star player. Take him away from Cleveland and the Cavaliers are nobody. 

xQc certainly isn’t the same caliber player as James, but the idea still holds true. His departure makes the Dallas Fuel less dramatic and less interesting, which in turn makes OWL slightly less interesting. Not to mention, now that xQc is so longer under contract, there’s a decent chance that he’s going to bash OWL and Fuel at every chance he gets.

There is still a chance that he could sign with another OWL team, namely San Francisco Shock where there’s already a culture of toxicity, and I for one hope he does. Sports in general are so much better when there are villains to root against. What OWL really needs is some external story lines to follow, something to distract us from the winless Shanghai Dragons and the lopsided affair this inaugural season has become.