Overwatch & Call of Duty Leagues reportedly abolishing salary cap Activision Blizzard \/ PexelsActivision Blizzard\u2019s Overwatch and Call of Duty Leagues are reportedly abolishing its maximum salary cap and competitive balance (luxury) tax. This is believed to be the result of a federal antitrust investigation. In July 2021, it was revealed that the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League were both being investigated by the US Department of Justice over antitrust laws. These stemmed from concerns that the leagues\u2019 \u201csoft caps\u201d violated rules pertaining to players\u2019 unions and worker bargaining power. About three months later, Sports Business Journal\u2019s Kevin Hitt reports that both the OWL and CDL plan to eliminate those cap and tax systems. As such, both leagues may head into their 2022 seasons without a maximum salary cap or a tax applied to teams who go above the \u201csoft\u201d salary cap. This is yet to be confirmed by Activision Blizzard. OWL and CDL eliminate salary cap & luxury tax after player\u2019s union investigation? Back in 2020, CDL players were fairly active in efforts to create a player\u2019s union. Ian \u2018Crimsix\u2019 Porter claimed it was \u201cin the works\u201d and Seth \u2018Scump\u2019 Abner appeared ready to sign on. But, despite two of CoD\u2019s biggest figures pushing for it, those talks seemingly died down. But, as Hitt reports, the DOJ\u2019s investigation may have forced Activision\u2019s hand. Salary caps are theoretically instituted to ensure competitive integrity and parity by restricting teams from outspending others. The only North American sport without one is the MLB, where there\u2019s still a luxury cap that punishes teams who go above a certain payment threshold. What is a salary cap or a competitive balance tax? Notably, sports like the MLB and international soccer have some of the highest-paid athletes in the world because they don\u2019t have salary caps. Players are subjected to bigger bidding wars without those limits and, thereby, bigger contracts. In leagues without salary caps, like the NBA and NFL, player\u2019s unions are considered critical. These unions negotiate with the leagues to maintain minimum salaries and similar conditions. The timing of the CDL and OWL\u2019s decision is interesting. The DOJ investigated the salary cap and luxury tax in the absence of a player\u2019s union and, within months, the former systems are reportedly being abolished. This is a developing story and we will update with more details as they become available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Overwatch & Call of Duty Leagues reportedly abolishing salary cap Activision Blizzard \/ PexelsActivision Blizzard\u2019s Overwatch and Call of Duty Leagues are reportedly abolishing its maximum salary cap and competitive balance (luxury) tax. This is believed to be the result of a federal antitrust investigation. In July 2021, it was revealed that the Overwatch League […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}