Minnesota ROKKR co-owner Gary Vee teases Call of Duty League TV deal The inaugural season of the Call of Duty League is right around the corner, and if hints from Minnesota R\u00f8KKR co-owner Gary Vaynerchuk are to be believed, the competition could be on the verge of announcing a major TV deal. Considering how big Activision\u2019s newly-franchised league is expected to be in 2020, it would be no surprise to see the competition\u2019s media rights auctioned off similarly to the Overwatch League\u2019s $90 million, two-year Twitch deal, or its multi-year deal with ABC\u2019s family of networks, including ESPN, Disney XD, and ABC. Now, it seems the league could be on the verge of a broadcasting deal announcement, after R\u00f8KKR co-owner Vaynerchuk seemed to tease the fact that something had already been put into writing behind the scenes in recent weeks. \u201cThese kids are going to be playing with totally different eyes on them\u2026 the league hasn\u2019t done a network deal have they, they might have a non-announce?\u201d the org\u2019s co-owner asked on the Building Minnesota podcast. Minnesota chief executive Brett Diamond was coy on the details, suggesting it \u201chad not been announced,\u201d and Vee replied that \u201cit\u2019s been done,\u201d though both R\u00f8KKR executives were careful not to issue anything akin to a proper announcement. \u201cThis is no \u2018Inside Esports,\u201d Vaynerchuk added, before touching on the impact that Overwatch League\u2019s ABC deal has had on that franchised league. \u201cObviously, Overwatch has their ABC deal, and where I\u2019m going is: I promise you this, [with the CDL], for a lot of these kids\u2014who have played on big streaming platforms and different things of that nature before\u2014the mass culture is going to be watching in a different way.\u201d Wherever the CDL media rights eventually land, it\u2019s sure to be a hefty cost, with analysts Konvoy Ventures estimating the franchise league\u2019s broadcasting contracts could be worth as much as $24 million per season. That sum, which clocks in at around $21 million less than what Blizzard scooped up for their multi-year Twitch deal, was based on an average 23,861,239 hours watched per month for the esport, with each hour watched equating to $1.39 in value for advertisers. Vaynerchuk, who continued to speak as if it was written in stone that CDL stars would have the eyes of the nation turned on them in 2020 as the inaugural season debuts on TV, suggested a potential deal could \u201cchange the face of the game.\u201d Instead of worrying about how much money any potentially already-signed deals may be waiting in the wings, however, the New York entrepreneur suggested any television deal could create new storylines, rivalry, and interest in Call of Duty. \u201c[New eyes] might make them play different,\u201d he suggested, and likened it to the pressure of playing \u201con center court at Wimbledon\u201d as opposed to an outside arena. \u201cThere\u2019s been some of the best players in tennis in the world, that when they get there can\u2019t play.\u201d The R\u00f8KKR co-owner also admitted that with more and more eyes turning towards Call of Duty esports with the franchised league, there\u2019s a possibility for teams to create more of a persona, and feed off the energy, and hate, of global audiences. \u201cIn an extreme example, my favorite athlete is Novak Djokovic because when he plays [Roger] Federer at Wimbledon, the entire stadium is cheering against him,\u201d Vee said. \u201cIn a world with teams like London, New York, and Los Angeles in the league, Minnesota is going to have a lot of people that are against them that are supporting these big cities. That\u2019s what enticed me to the project in the first place. \u201cThat\u2019s what competition is, there\u2019s nothing more fun than having the whole crowd [or audience] against you, beating that other person, looking at the crowd, and saying \u201cf**k you.\u201d That attracts me to the Call of Duty League tremendously.\u201d Whether or not there is a television deal just around the corner for Activision-Blizzard\u2019s next franchise league, it\u2019s already clear that hype is reaching a fever-pitch as the comp\u2019s preseason rolls on with scrims and Modern Warfare updates. There\u2019s already drama aplenty before the first bullet has even been shot in the league too, with teams like the New York Subliners and Dallas Empire at each other\u2019s throats over MuTeX\u2019s explosive departure from Empire\u2019s 2020 roster. Ex-OpTic Gaming allies Seth \u2018Scump\u2019 Abner and Ian \u2018Crimsix\u2019 Porter have also waded into the preseason trash talk, taking pot-shots at each other in their Twitch chats and pulling out some friendly banter on Twitter as the CDL looms. As CoD enters its first-ever franchised league, fans are anticipating mouth-watering match-ups and unprecedented storylines, and now there\u2019s a real chance it could all play out across a global TV stage, if Vee\u2019s teases are to be believed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minnesota ROKKR co-owner Gary Vee teases Call of Duty League TV deal The inaugural season of the Call of Duty League is right around the corner, and if hints from Minnesota R\u00f8KKR co-owner Gary Vaynerchuk are to be believed, the competition could be on the verge of announcing a major TV deal. Considering how big […]<\/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-28570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28570","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=28570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}