Activision/Blizzard has certainly been having a good week. With the amount of success Call of Duty: Warzone is having, it is only fitting that the modern Twitter world is starting to get invested.
The Call of Duty League (CDL) is rapidly on pace to become one of the most successful esports competitions. With companies taking more and more notice, Activision/Blizzard has decided to move forward with their next business engagement. They’ve agreed to a three-season rights deal with social media platform, Twitter.
The Basics
Under the global deal, Twitter will provide Call of Duty League highlights and community engagement.
The League is currently broadcast online exclusively via video-sharing platform YouTube. Ahead of its launch in January, Activision Blizzard agreed to a wide-ranging strategic relationship with Google. Through this, YouTube became the new exclusive streaming partner of its esports competitions worldwide, excluding China.
The CDL, whose inaugural season got underway in January, will also utilize Twitter’s conversational products and the company’s recently launched topics and lists functionality. This allows users to separate their favorite tweet subjects from the rest of their timeline.
Call of Duty League will utilize Twitter’s conversational products for fan predictions and cheering. It will also work with its recently launched ‘Topics’ and ‘Lists’ functionality. Twitter and Call of Duty League have also launched team hashtag emojis for the entire League.
A Word From Corporate
Rishi Chadha, Twitter’s global head of gaming content partnerships, had this to say about the blossoming relationship:
“The Call of Duty community has been one of the largest gaming communities on Twitter, and we are thrilled to be partnering with Activision Blizzard to continue to support this vibrant community.
In 2019 alone, Call of Duty Esports had three of the top ten most talked about esports events in the world, and this long-term partnership shows our commitment to the continued success of Call of Duty Esports.”
There is quite a lot of potential here. The Call of Duty League already performs insanely well online, trending whenever a CDL takes place. Fans tweet religiously, posting updates and screencaps in order to chase a slight chance of Twitter fame. Yet, with Twitter and the Call of Duty League joining forces, there will without a doubt be new and improved ways for Call of Duty fans on Twitter to show their appreciation for the best COD players in the world.
Josh Cella, head of global partnerships for Activision Blizzard Esports, had this to say in the latest company press release.
“We have seen excitement for the new Call of Duty League grow since the season kicked off in January 2020, and we couldn’t be prouder to announce additional partners for the future vision of Call of Duty esports. Each of these brands will help deliver fresh content and experiences to our global audience as the best players in the world compete to win the first Call of Duty League Championship.”
In The End
It should also be noted that the CDL live broadcasts will be exclusively by the Google-owned video-sharing platform YouTube. Youtube just emptied a pit of pocket change for a rights deal with Activision a few months back. This agreement also includes games outside of the Call of Duty League, in particular, the Overwatch League. Since this is Activision’s other hard-hitting, quick-tweeting franchise tournament, worth over a reported $160 million, it will be a tough balancing act of shared publicity for the two.
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