History of Call of Duty League: From Early Championship to the Current State of the Stage

Call of Duty League is the main esports series of the popular shooter Call of Duty. But if in Europe the discipline is not especially popular, North America feels very strongly about the game with a huge fanbase that are thrilled to honor the traditions.

The modern Call of Duty League is a closed ecosystem where twelve slots have been reserved for participants in the franchise. However, from now on the organizers started to give access to the competition to the team of the Challengers series to open new talents.

In this material we will talk about the history of the esports in Call of Duty, and will also evaluate its current state after cementing Call of Duty League as the main franchise ecosystem.

How did it start — the first premises for esports in Call of Duty

When in 2003 the first game of Call of Duty was released, a more competitive part of fans joined together to create Major League Gaming which became the first company that created the competitive ecosystem in CoD. Eventually, the players bought the website Gamebattles, which became the main CoD competitive platform that became the birthplace for the largest esports teams.

When in 2007 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare came out, the new professional community started to arrange the first LAN tournaments that became the Major League Championship in 2009.

As the years went on and new games were released, the competitive stage grew along with the tournaments of the MLG series, more and more money was at stake in the prize pool for winners and finalists. This is when most of the famous organizations were born. For example, Team Envy, FaZe Clan or OpTic Gaming. The legendary dynasties like Fariko Impact and compLexity Gaming, and legendary players like Karma and Crimsix also emerged at the period.

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Call of Duty World League is the first example of the fully-fledged ecosystem

The company Activision purchased the MLG series in 2016 and thanks to this the competitive stage took a tremendous step forward. The previous format of the LAN tournament was added to the planned professional league: Call of Duty World League. It also helped to separate the acknowledged professionals from beginning talents to help the latter to make their way to the professional stage.

The format remained the same: LAN tournaments took place throughout the year, and now it was accompanied by a professional league that increased the number of matches in a season. It was the thing that moved the competitive stage in Call of Duty forward, as it shaped the esports entity into a professionally structured league and famous team (even with branches in other disciplines). This is when the third dynasty was born — OpTic Gaming.

Emergence of Call of Duty League

The competitive ecosystem in Call of Duty again changed the format in 2020 following LCS or OWL to move to the franchise league. It meant not only reshuffling of the team but also a birth of new team as most of the slots in the franchise were purchased by companies that did not have a team. For example, Hector Rodriguez, former owner of OpTic Gaming, joined NRG Esports to form a team called Chicago Huntsmen. However, some teams remained the same and just got a different name, for instance, OpTic Gaming Los Angeles (is a part of Immortals Gaming Club).

First season of Call of Duty League

The first season of Call of Duty League took place from January till August in 2020. The total prize pool of the season was $6,000,000, dividing the prizes among 13 stages/weeks, and also the final in the playoff.

By the results of each stage, teams got rating points to define Top-8 at the end of the season — they will become participants in the playoff.

WInners and finalists of Call of Duty League - 2020

• 1 place: Dallas Empire — $1,500,000
• 2 place: Atlanta FaZe — $900,000
• 3 place: Chicago Huntsmen — $600,000
• 4 place: London Royal Ravens — $450,000
• 5-6 place: Toronto Ultra and OpTic Gaming Los Angeles — $300,000
• 7-8 place: New York Subliners and Florida Mutineers — $175,000
• 9-10 place: Paris Legion and Minnesota RØKKR — $100,000
• 11-12 place: Seattle Surge and Los Angeles Guerrillas

Second season of Call of Duty League

In the following year the organizers validated the ecosystem that is present now with five regular seasons that ended up with a major in the LAN format.

The season ended with the CDL Championship 2021 that replaced the previous format of the playoff. The event welcomed Top-8 best teams in the season that were gaining points during the year (from January till July). This time the total prize pool of the season consisted of $5,000,000.

Winners and finalists of Call of Duty League - 2021

• 1 place: Atlanta FaZe — $1,200,000
• 2 place: Toronto Ultra — $650,000
• 3 place: Dallas Empire — $300,000
• 4 place: Minnesota RØKKR — $150,000
• 5-6 place: New York Subliners and OpTic Chicago — $75,000
• 7-8 place: Los Angeles Thieves and Florida Mutineers — $25,000
• 9-10 place: London Royal Ravens and Seattle Surge
• 11-12 place: Paris Legion and Los Angeles Guerrillas

Third season of Call of Duty League

The previous season of Call of Duty League in 2022 was not different from the one in the previous year. Truth be told, now organizers gave up on regular seasons to turn them into qualifiers. Besides, the previous season held only four majors and it ended with the competitive year of Call of Duty League Championship 2022.

As it had been before, the overall prize pool of the Call of Duty League - 2022 was $5,000,000. The season took seven months as usual — from January till August.

Winner and finalists of Call of Duty League - 2022

• 1 place: Los Angeles Thieves — $1,200,000
• 2 place: Atlanta FaZe — $650,000
• 3 place: Seattle Surge — $320,000
• 4 place: OpTic Texas — $160,000
• 5-6 place: New York Subliners and Toronto Ultra — $80,000
• 7-8 place: London Royal Ravens and Boston Breach — $30,000
• 9-10 place: Florida Mutineers and Los Angeles Guerrillas
• 11-12 place: Paris Legion and Minnesota RØKKR

The real Call of Duty League

Recently a new season of Call of Duty League has started. Unlike the previous year, the season started in December. Organizers plan to hold five majors, the last of which happened at the end of May.

At the very end of the season Call of Duty League Championship 2023 will take place and the details of the championship will be revealed later.

If we outline the most important, the total prize pool of the season remained the same — $5,000,000. Also, the stage is represented by twelve partnership teams:

Now we just have to see what the organizers have instore for us in the next season. But the season has just started, so it is worth watching the battles of the best teams in the world