This weekend, the Call of Duty League Championship will take place as a virtual esports tournament, and the winner will take the throne. In this case, it’s an actual throne, designed for the winning team to take home and sit in. The event will cap a grueling season for virtual esports and a big week for the Call of Duty franchise, which announced its new Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War this week.
Four teams will compete for the throne: the Atlanta FaZe, Dallas Empire, Chicago Huntsmen, and London Royal Ravens. The winner will take home $1.5 million, and the total purse is around $4.6 million. For the first time, the league has been organized along a city-based franchise model, like the Overwatch League that preceded it and professional sports franchises. Disrupted by the pandemic, this year’s physical events were canceled and everything moved online in April. I am frankly surprised that, given all of the events that have happened this year, this league is pushing toward a finish line with viewership that shows significant growth. Somehow, in a year full of Warzone and George Floyd and #MeToo, spectators found enough reason to watch a bunch of nerds play video games.
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