Nadeshot raises major concerns about Call of Duty franchised league 100 Thieves\/MLGIn an interview with ESPN Esports, Matthew \u2018Nadeshot\u2018 Haag explained why he is optimistic, but also concerned about the upcoming franchising of the Call of Duty World League. 100 Thieves is only less than two years old, but its quick rise to becoming an esports powerhouse has been nothing short of spectacular. Owner and founder Matthew \u201cNadeshot\u201d Haag is proud of the brand he has helped build, which is why he\u2019s a little nervous about franchising. \u201cThe way that Activision and Blizzard are handling team branding is definitely a concern of mine,\u201d he told ESPN. \u201cFor 100 Thieves, we\u2019re very much focused on 100 Thieves, and we\u2019re building beyond just gaming, so that\u2019s definitely been one of the reservations in my mind\u2026because we\u2019d have to build out an entirely different asset and brand.\u201d This is a very reasonable concern from Nadeshot. Lots of other esports organization owners had to put resources into developing new assets and brands for the Overwatch League when they announced that the franchises would be exclusive to Overwatch League. But Nadeshot wasn\u2019t entirely critical of the job that Activision and Blizzard have done. \u201cThey\u2019ve done an incredible job from a sales perspective. They\u2019re monetizing the league very well. I\u2019ve talked to a lot of different owners about their experience in Overwatch, and there\u2019s some positives and a lot of negatives. I\u2019m cautiously optimistic.\u201d Nadeshot then switched the discussion to Call of Duty esports, and similar to his analysis of Overwatch League practices, relayed that Activision had \u201cdone alot of good, but there\u2019s a lot that they could do better.\u201d When asked about specific positives and negatives of franchising on an organization, Nadeshot noted the lack of volatility as the biggest positive, citing the struggles of relegation on organizations during the pre-franchise days of the LCS. He does have a point here: while yes, relegation does stoke the flames of competition by giving teams a reason not to be bad, it can be a struggle for organizations trying to get funding and maintain sponsorships if they end up being relegated to a lower league. Nadeshot circled back to his earlier point about branding as a primary negative for franchising organizations. \u201cYou have these household brands that have been built over the past decade, why wipe that away?\u201d 100 Thieves\u2019 NA LCS roster finished dead last in Championship points for 2019, with zero points earned between the Spring and Summer Split. Their famed Call of Duty roster made it all the way to the grand finals of the Call of Duty World League Championships, before falling to eUnited 3-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nadeshot raises major concerns about Call of Duty franchised league 100 Thieves\/MLGIn an interview with ESPN Esports, Matthew \u2018Nadeshot\u2018 Haag explained why he is optimistic, but also concerned about the upcoming franchising of the Call of Duty World League. 100 Thieves is only less than two years old, but its quick rise to becoming an […]<\/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-29790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29790","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=29790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}