What We Know So Far About the Call of Duty Esports League

With fans eagerly anticipating the upcoming esports season of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, our staff over at ESTNN have put together this “in the loop” guide for you to get caught up with.

The inaugural season of the Call of Duty League™ will begin with the Call of Duty League Launch Weekend at the Minneapolis Armory from January 24-26, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The event will be hosted by Minnesota Røkkr – the Call of Duty League team operated by WISE Ventures Esports, under the ownership of the Wilf Family (owners of the Minnesota Vikings), and investor Gary Vaynerchuk. All 12 professional Call of Duty League teams will compete across three days during the opening weekend of the regular season.

With the season officially starting off in early 2020, the league will follow a “home-vs-away format” of five-versus-five professional match play. Teams are sprouting up from all over, including the Atlanta Faze, Chicago Huntsmen, Dallas Empire, Florida Mutineers, London Ravens, Los Angeles Guerillas, Optic Gaming Los Angeles, Minnesota Rokkr, New York Subliners, Paris Legion, Seattle Surge, and Toronto Ultra.

There have also been rumors that the teams have each been paid around $20 to $25 million each for their participation alone in this introductory esports season. Each player in the Call of Duty league is slated to make around $50,000 a season, which of course does not factor in bonuses or extra prize money.

The Tour for the game is completely international and consists of just two stops for each time when traveling city to city.

Here is some information from the official COD launch page:

Call of Duty League Launch Weekend will also feature the season’s first Call of Duty Challengers™ Open, where amateur players from around the world can compete as teams in an open bracket tournament format. 

Beginning in November, Call of Duty Challengers competitors will begin battling via online ladders and tournaments. Challengers team passes for Launch Weekend will go on sale in early December.

For more on ticketing information for the January league kick-off, follow this link.