Activision Blizzard has been engaged with esports currently and it looks like there is more work to be done. Reported by ESPN earlier today, the plan is have a Call of Duty esports league with a franchise in each city. The cost to have these teams in each city is going to cost $25 million dollars per team.
The plan is to reproduce the OverWatch League style of having a team represent each city, with a championship game to end the season. The next step for Activision would be to restructure the current teams in the current Call of Duty World League. The restructured league will be revealed in 2020.
Activision may try to integrate the current OWL owners into creating a Call of Duty team under their umbrella. Makes sense being that there is an ongoing relationship between the two teams and Activision already, so why not, keep the relationship going.
The success of OWL shows that professional sports format has both created strong fanbases, and interest from high profile individuals such as Rick Fox (Echo Fox) who can invest in the product and endorse it also. Only two franchises have their hands in both the pockets of Overwatch and CoD, which are Dallas Envy and OpTic Gaming, there is plenty of room for what could be a flourishing opportunity.
