Call of Duty League has announced major changes to the way they deal with their esports teams.
As they revealed in a new announcement in their website, Call of Duty League worked with the teams themselves to make better terms and keep them viable in the near future. They outlined these changes:
- They are permanently removing entry fees for all the leagues to play. Subsequently ,any previously collected fees while they put the program on pause during the pandemic will be returned to the teams
- They will get a bigger share of revenue from selling in-game merchandise. That now also includes revenue from the Champs bundle
- Call of Duty League is increasing their subsidies for teams that are organizing live in-person events
- Finally, teams get two year minimum guaranteed revenue.
This announcement follows news last month that one of those esports teams, OpTic Gaming, had legal complaints against the league, which had led to arbitration between OpTic’s owner, Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez, and one of their players, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner, both against the league. The terms of arbitration meant that the lawsuit that was to be filed against the league had been dismissed, and that the judge would then oversee the arbitration to ensure it would be to the satisfaction of all parties involved.
Prior legal documentation on the issue let us know that some of the changes announced today addressed some of Team OpTic’s complaints. For example, entry fees for teams to join tournaments added up to an astronomical $ 27.5 million. Call of Duty League also had control over how the leagues did business and the deals they could make with advertisers and sponsors.
At the time of this writing, we found no statement from Team Optic, H3CZ, or Scump about this announcement. It’s easy to assume that this decision came as a result of their legal action, but for now, we don’t have all the details. It may be the case that Call of Duty League made this deal with all the teams except for Team Optic. But it’s also possible that this new announcement is a result of the arbitration. For now, we also can’t confirm that the arbitration has been settled or not either.
But there is one obvious change that is likely the reason we are seeing Call of Duty League change their policies as well. As we had reported, the parties entered arbitration, ending the possibility of a lawsuit, after Microsoft finished their acquisition of Call of Duty League’s parent company, Activision Blizzard King.
Among the many things, careers, and businesses that Microsoft took over as a result of their acquisition was the Call of Duty League. Now the livelihoods of a few hundred people in this league, as well as those leagues playing Overwatch and other competitive Activision Blizzard games, are under their purview as well. This is an opportunity for new revenues for Microsoft, and at the same time, new communities for them to take care of. Hopefully, this is the first salvo in what is a new direction for their esports initiatives moving forward.
