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Knowing the eSport

Before 2019 this eSport was played on Playstation, whereas now it is all played on PC, Call of Duty was one of the only eSports of its size that was on console before the move over. When Call of Duty eSports was on console its was ran by a company called Major League Gaming(MLG) which they created the CWL (COD World League), But when Activision acquired MLG in 2016 they wanted to make eSports mainstream. Activision held out until 2019 where they created the Call of Duty league (CDL) which had a $25 Million buy in for the organistions to have a team in the league.

Before the league you all you had to buy to play the Major Touraments was a team pass, which was normally around $200 per team, So as you can imagine there were many young organizations that couldnt afford the $25 million buy in. The league also meant that teams/organizations had to rename that did buy a league spot as the league were based aroiund locations. So an example of this is the team called EnvyUs had bought a league spot and named their team the Dallas Empire and Faze Clan one of the leading organizations bought spot and is called Atlanta Faze

2019

2019 was the last year of the CWL before the CDL took over. This tournament was played on PS4 and of Call of Duty Black Ops 4. This year consisted of normal tournaments throughtout the year and also the Pro league that teams had to qualify for. You also had the Pro league, Playoffs and Playoffs finals to play for this year. Then at the end of every year there is the big touraments called COD Champs which is always the biggest tournament of the year, call it the world cup of call of duty. This year the prize pool for Champs was $2 million and the winner got $800,000 of that $2,000,000. This year a team called eUnited won, the players consisted of Arcitys, Prestinni, Clayster, ABeZy and Simp.

2020

Now 2020 was the first year of the CDL which activision owned and created. This year the game was played on PC for the first time ever, but with controllers and played on Call of Duty Modern Warfare This year worked a little differently where firstly each of the teams had their home series which was would have taken place in their given State/City and then there would have been the big tourament at the end of the year that didnt class as a home series. So the launch event was run by the Minnesota ROKKR and of course was held in Minneapolis, this was a offline tournament and also had an open bracket where the Challengers teams had to buy a team pass like before the CDL was created and battle it out for a cash prize, but unlike other open brackets where the top 4 of the opens got put into a pool with the "pro teams" this time they didnt because of that massive buy in. After the launch event they had events at Atlanta, Los Angeles, and London. After these events London was the last LAN event and after that event thanks to Covid-19 the Call of Duty League became an online league. So for the rest of the year the league was an online league and come time for Champs it was still online as the risk of covid was still at its highest and the league owners didnt want to take any risks. Even thought this was an Online tournament it didnt mean that they went shy with the prize pool, it was a COD record breaking event with $4,600,000 on the line where the winner got $1,500,000 between 5 players! Where the Dallas Empire had won this event!

2021

2021 was another year of Online competition so this year was run a little different to the year before, where in 2020 each team were meant to have their own home series in their respentive city/state, this time the league got changed a little and introduced 5 stages all the stages were played online. This is where all the stages never had money for a prize but only had CDL points and the team with the most CDL points had the better seeding for champs at the end of the year. All year the games were played online then Activision had put a statement that the league will finally be put back on a LAN event and champs will be played offline which makes some teams have less of an advantage. Call of Duty has been known to play very different online compared to lan and some teams have been known as "Online Warriors". So COD Champs was played in LA in the Galen Center which has a capacity of 10,258 poeple and had a prize pool of $2,500,000 which the winners claimed $1,200,000 of that prize pool. This year was the first year where a europeon team came the closest to winning champs with a nice 2nd place finish for the full europeon team under Toronto Ultra, they claimed $650,000. This year was played on Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War.

2022

2022 was the release of Call of Duty Vanguard, which brought the game back to an World War 2 era. This is the year that LAN events made a full return and online games didn't happen. As of right now there has only been 3 events which is the Kickoff, Optic Texas Major 1, and Minnesota Rokker Major 2. But on the 5th of May till May 8th there is a Pro-Am classic which is the first time since the league creation where "ameteur" teams will play to "pro" teams and I think a lot of COD eSports fans are very excited for this tournament to see of the Ameteurs will play against the pros. There is a big reason to why there is a lot of excitement because if a AM team beats a Pro team then the team will guarentee make a change after the tourament and might give the AM players a very good chance on getting into the league and be on a VERY nice salary.