4 things the Call of Duty League can do to improve viewership MLG \/ CDLDespite the millions invested into the Call of Duty League and Activision\u2019s backing, the viewership has not been what many would have hoped for. But, hope is not lost. There are a handful of things the CDL could do to maximize viewership and capitalize on the Call of Duty series\u2019 monumental player-base. The Call of Duty League\u2019s second season is reaching a climax and, despite the heightening of tensions and prize money, its YouTube viewership is still leaving a lot to be desired. With millions invested by orgs, owners, sponsors and more, viewers regularly touching 6-figures would have been targeted. Unfortunately, it has struggled to come anywhere close, with viewership generally hovering anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 viewers. It has fallen lower though, sitting at a woeful 8,000 during the ROKKR\u2019s Stage 5 home series. So what can the CDL do to improve viewership? Here are a few things we\u2019d like to see that would be conducive to reeling in a bigger audience. Format changes First up is something totally with in the league\u2019s control \u2013 format changes. The current system sees a number of weeks of regular matches in groups, which go on to decide seeding and starting brackets for the end-of-stage major tournaments. The problem is that there\u2019s generally very little on the line in these matches. A lot of viewers are simply not interested in Florida versus Paris to decide who\u2019ll get the slightly easier Losers\u2019 Bracket match. With the ROKKR home series in Stage 5 \u2013 and the fact that only 8 out of 12 teams qualify for Champs \u2013 a number of teams (Seattle, London and others) actually have nothing to play for. They can\u2019t qualify, so what\u2019s the incentive to watch matches? The format should eliminate these \u2018dead-rubber\u2019 games as much as possible. Better in-game Ranked System This is not a particularly new idea, with prominent CoD figures like CouRage calling on developers to spend more time on in-game ranking systems. The main thing lacking in CoD\u2019s competitive modes is consistency. Some have League Play, some Arena Mode, while some never get more than a CDL ruleset playlist. Black Ops Cold War\u2019s League Play is also incredibly confusing. Players are placed into incomprehensibly named divisions, and assigned seemingly random rewards points and diamonds at the end of cycles. A good in-game ranked system would encourage players to engage with the competitive aspects of Call of Duty titles and, naturally, drive them towards the CDL. We\u2019ve seen it in action before too \u2013 Black Ops 2\u2019s League Play being the prime example. Improved CDL broadcasts Next up is the broadcasts themselves. Not only do they happen frustratingly late in the day for anyone east of New York (viewers in Europe are expected to stay up until the early hours every night to see matches conclude), but the broadcasts themselves are dominated by adverts for mobile games and countdown timers. Plenty of fans tune in to watch Call of Duty, but it feels like more time is spent hearing how Cesar \u2018Skyz\u2019 Bueno is investing in his game. The need for advertising is obvious, but better filler segments and the reduction of countdowns could be a simple yet significant improvement to retaining viewers. Use Warzone\u2019s popularity The popularity of Warzone appears both a blessing and a curse for Activision. Millions playing is any publisher\u2019s dream, but playing a spin-off BR rather than the CDL\u2019s annual title seems to be hurting viewership. With players dropping into Verdansk rather than Checkmate Hardpoint, there\u2019s not the interest in Cold War that there could be. The answer, then seems simple: use Warzone to promote competitive CoD and the CDL. We\u2019ve seen some efforts on this front, but plenty more can be done. Offer in-game rewards (both BOCW and Warzone) for watching the CDL, promote broadcasts and Champs through in-game events and generally get creative. If Warzone is an advert with millions of daily viewers, use it, and them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
4 things the Call of Duty League can do to improve viewership MLG \/ CDLDespite the millions invested into the Call of Duty League and Activision\u2019s backing, the viewership has not been what many would have hoped for. But, hope is not lost. There are a handful of things the CDL could do to maximize […]<\/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-22144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22144","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=22144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}