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Activision Blizzard Worries Over Overwatch and Call of Duty Leagues' Future

Activision Blizzard doesn’t believe in their longevity
by Tit Krajnik on May 05, 2023   

Activision Blizzard publicly expressed concerns about two of its esports leagues, the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty League. The company admitted it has growing concerns about the longevity of the two endeavours under the current business model.

 

On Friday, May 4, Activision Blizzard submitted a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing where the company revealed its views of the Call of Duty League and Overwatch League, which have been struggling financially and otherwise.

“Our collaborative arrangements for our professional esports leagues (i.e., the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty League) continue to face headwinds which are negatively impacting the operations and, potentially, the longevity of the leagues under the current business model. We continue to work to address these challenges, which could result in significant costs, and such efforts may prove unsuccessful,” read the filing.

The filing essentially states that Blizzard’s attempts to make the two esports league profitable have proven to be too expensive and not worth the effort, as it’s the attempts will unlikely succeed. On top of that, both leagues reportedly have teams that owe approximately $400 million combined in delayed franchise payments, which have been delayed since 2020.

“Overall, we expect that our most popular franchises will continue to produce a disproportionately high percentage of our revenues and profits in the near future,” added Activision Blizzard.

“Accordingly, our ability to maintain these franchises and to successfully compete against the wide range of competitive titles available in the industry could significantly impact our performance.”

With Activision now publicly questioning the longevity of the Call of Duty League and Overwatch League, this brings a lot of questions and reasons for concern among esports fans and investors. However, Activision has plans to increase revenue with more content and free-to-play titles.

As said, Activision is “exploring additional ways to expand our franchises and games” and aims to “increase player engagement” by releasing more content for their games more frequently. These plans have been made regardless of the recent challenges of retaining and attracting new talent in game development.

But regardless of the concerns, the Call of Duty League seems to be in a healthy spot as more organizations are looking to enter the league. Recently it was reported that Team Heretics is set to partner with the Florida Mutineers to create a new team – the Miami Heretics.

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