Team owners in franchised esports league, the Call of Duty League, are in active negotiations with Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Cecilia D’Anastasio. According to the report, citing “people familiar with the discussions,” owners want a larger share of revenue generated from in-game item sales, and want less restrictions on sponsorships and partnerships so that they can secure deals on their own without interference from the league.
Many of the things team owners appear to be negotiating for were brought to light in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by Call of Duty professional player Seth “Scump” Abner and OpTic Gaming founder Hector “H3CZ” Rodriguez against Activision Blizzard. The lawsuit claimed that Activision Blizzard is operating a monopoly on Call of Duty esports and that in doing so, it is violating several sections of the Sherman Act and multiple California antitrust statutes.
One of the claims from the lawsuit is that Activision Blizzard has restrictions on certain categories that it reserves for itself. Two key claims from that lawsuit are that Activision Blizzard requires an unconditional 50% share of the revenue teams generate from ticket sales, sponsorships, and other revenue streams; and that it has the exclusive rights to contract with the best sponsors.
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in October 2023, following several years of convincing government regulators in the UK, Europe, and the United States that they should approve the $69B USD merger. What’s unclear is what Activision Blizzard—now under the auspices of Microsoft leadership—will do with Call of Duty League in the long-term. At the end of January Activision Blizzard announced that its other franchised league—Overwatch League—would move away from that format and would instead be more open to a wider competition run by Saudi Arabian-owned ESL FACEIT Group as the “Overwatch Champions Series.”