The 2023 Overwatch League Grand Finals were the sixth championship match of the Overwatch League (OWL), which took place on October 1, 2023. The series marked the conclusion of the 2023 Overwatch League playoffs and was played between the Houston Outlaws and the Florida Mayhem at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, Canada.
Houston entered the season playoffs as the fifth seed and lost their opening match against the Mayhem in the group stage. They defeated the Seoul Infernal and Dallas Fuel in the groups to advance to the semifinals, where they defeated the Hangzhou Spark. Florida entered as the third seed, and after defeating the Outlaws, they defeated the Dallas Fuel to advance to the semifinals, where they defeated the Boston Uprising.
The Mayhem defeated the Outlaws by a score of 4–0 to win their first OWL championship.
Road to the Grand Finals
The Grand Finals are the post-season championship series of the Overwatch League (OWL), a professional international esports league; the teams in the 2023 Grand Finals match competed for a prize pool, where the winners received $1million. The 2023 season was the sixth season in OWL history and was contested by OWL 19 teams along with Overwatch Contenders teams in the Eastern region. The playoffs were contested by eight teams – five from the league's West region and three from the league's East region.
The finalists, the Florida Mayhem and the Houston Outlaws, finished the regular season with records of and , respectively. The Mayhem claimed entered the season playoffs as the third overall seed, while the Outlaws entered as the fifth. The defending Overwatch League champions, the Dallas Fuel were eliminated in the lower finals of the group stage of the playoffs, while the 2022 runners-up, the San Francisco Shock, failed to qualify for the 2023 playoffs after being eliminated in the West play-in tournament.
Houston Outlaws
The Outlaws entered the Overwatch League in 2018 as one of its twelve founding franchises. Following a third-place finish in the 2022 playoffs, the Outlaws released the entirety of its roster, aside from damage player Oh "Pelican" Se-hyun. The team then picked up veterans to fill its roster, signing hitscan damage player Lee "Happy" Jung-woo, tank player Lee "Fearless" Eui-seok, and support players Kim "Shu" Jin-seo and Park "Viol2t" Min-ki. Just a week before the beginning of the preseason pro-am, the Outlaws picked up tank player Lee "Gargoyle" Beom-jun.
In the Spring Stage qualifiers, the Outlaws went 7–1, the second-best record in the Western region. Their placement qualified them for the international Midseason Madness tournament. They reached the upper bracket finals of the tournament after defeating the Seoul Infernal by a score of 3–0 in the upper bracket semifinals. The Outlaws lost their upper bracket finals match against the Atlanta Reign, 2–3, dropping them to the lower bracket finals, where they faced the Florida Mayhem. Houston defeated Florida, 3–1, to advance to the finals against the Reign. The Outlaws finished the tournament in second place, losing the Reign by a score of 1–4. At the start of the Summer Stage qualifiers, the Outlaws announced that Gargoyle had retired. The team went 6–2 throughout the qualifiers, which included a win over then undefeated Reign, giving them a regular season record of 13–3, the third best record in the West. Fearless was awarded a tank Role Star commendation at the end of the regular season.
Heading into the season playoffs, Overwatch 2 received a balance patch; notably, the tank hero Zarya received a buff. Anticipating that Zarya would be a strong hero to play in the playoffs, the Outlaws signed tank player Shin "Bernar" Se-won. In the season playoffs, the Outlaws were placed in a group with the Seoul Infernal, Florida Mayhem, and Dallas Fuel. Houston lost their opening match against the Mayhem by a score of 1–3. They went on to defeat both the Infernal and Fuel to advance past the group stage to the semifinals. In the semifinals match, the Outlaws defeated the Hangzhou Spark, 3–0, to advance to the Grand Finals.