The road to the 2016 Call of Duty® World League Championship, Presented by PlayStation® 4 finished its last live qualifying competition yesterday with an epic showdown in Orlando as Optic Gaming won the Call of Duty® MLG Orlando Open.

Yesterday’s finals completed a thrilling weekend of competition, as eager fans in attendance, online at MLG.tv and other livestreams, and those tuning-in directly through an in-game (BOIII PS4) Live Event Viewer, watched 72 hours of compelling action. Optic Gaming took home the top prize after besting Team Envyus to be the top of more than 100 teams from around the world.

Yesterday’s exciting tournament also served as the final CWL Pro Points event of the season, as competition now moves to the North American online qualifier as the final stop before the highly anticipated CWL Championship at Call of Duty® XP. At the CWL Championship, 32 teams will play for their share of the biggest single event prize pool in Call of Duty® history, $2 million.

With the growth of the Call of Duty World League, Call of Duty esports viewership has increased by more than five times year-over-year to 33 million views of the Stage 1 events this year. The Call of Duty World League Championships at Call of Duty XP is expected to be our most viewed Call of Duty esports event in history by a wide margin.

After the dust settled, over 1.4 million cumulative viewers across distribution platforms, including MLG.tv, generated over 8 million video views during the event, consuming over 2 million hours of content throughout the weekend, and peaking at 164,000 concurrent viewers during the thrilling finals match. (Viewership stats from MLG.tv, Facebook Live, Twitch)

Here are the top eight teams from the Call of Duty MLG Orlando Open:

Optic Gaming

Team Envyus

Team Elevate

Faze Clan

Rise Nation

Luminosity Gaming

Cloud9

Complexity Gaming

On August 15, 2016, a live broadcast on youtube.com/callofduty will determine the grouping for all the qualified teams. Four teams will face off against each other in each of the eight groups during the first part of the tournament. The top two teams from each group will move on to the bracket stage. Once at that stage, teams will face off in a double elimination bracket to determine the winner of the most important Call of Duty competitive event of the year. The winning team will take home the lion’s share of the $2 million prize pool as part of the closing festivities at Call of Duty XP, the ultimate interactive experience and fan celebration, taking place in Inglewood, California, September 2 – 4, 2016.

Call of Duty World League, Presented by PlayStation®4 is proud to partner with Major League Gaming, a division of Activision Blizzard, Inc. Through MLG’s proven live streaming and Enhanced Viewing Experience (EVE) capabilities, CWL fans can watch all the action on MLG.tv and in-game (BOIII PS4) through Live Event Viewer.

About Activision Blizzard



Activision Blizzard, Inc., a member of the S&P 500, is the world’s most successful standalone interactive entertainment company. We delight nearly 500 million monthly active users around the world through franchises including Activision’s Call of Duty®, Destiny and Skylanders®, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft®, StarCraft®, Diablo®, Hearthstone®: Heroes of Warcraft™ and Overwatch®, and King’s Candy Crush™, Pet Rescue™ and Farm Heroes™. The company is one of the Fortune ʺ100 Best Companies To Work For®ʺ. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard has operations throughout the world, and its games are played in 196 countries. More information about Activision Blizzard and its products can be found on the company’s website, www.activisionblizzard.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Activision Publishing’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future, including statements about Call of Duty XP, are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause Activision Publishing’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include unanticipated product delays and other factors identified in the risk factors sections of Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Activision Publishing and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Activision Publishing nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Activision Publishing or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

ACTIVISION and CALL OF DUTY are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners.

MAJOR LEAGUE GAMING is a registered trademark of Major League Gaming Corp.

Source: Press release / Activision Blizzard