Call of Duty World League eSports event in Paris 6-8 May 2016. Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard is upping its esports game with the announcement of a raft of improvements to its MLG.tv (Major League Gaming) streaming platform.

Dubbed 'Enhanced Viewing Experience', the platform will combine high-definition streams of gaming tournaments with match statistics, leaderboards and other in-game insights.


Streams will be available on Facebook and MLG.tv and will launch during the MLG Anaheim Open, a two-day Call of Duty tournament that kicks off on June 10.

Activision Blizzard – the entertainment company behind the Call of Duty franchise – bought MLG, a games tournament organiser, earlier this year. Mike Sepso, co-founder of MLG and now senior vice president of Activision Blizzard Media Networks, told WIRED that he wanted esports to reach as big an audience as possible. "We're not looking to paywall any of this content at this point. We're really interested in distributing our premium content to anywhere that viewers want to see it."

Activision Blizzard is teaming up with Facebook Livestream to broadcast the esports matches. It's estimated that around 250 million people currently watch esports each month, making virtual sports more popular with viewers than the NHL or the NBA in the US.

Call of Duty World League eSports event in Paris 6-8 May 2016. Activision Blizzard


"What I think has been missing from [esports] is what traditional sports has learned to do very well, which is celebrate the players and bring the personalities and stars and players to the forefront," said Sepso. "[This] will tell a deeper, richer story about the individuals playing and how the teams are playing together by providing insight and predictive analytics on a per-player basis."

The new-look MLG.tv will also include live data-feeds that respond to in-game events. A Call of Duty player might achieve an objective, Sepso said, and that would trigger the platform to display a table of stats telling viewers how likely the player is to achieve that same objective again later on in the tournament.

Last month's MLG Columbus Major tournament saw South American squad Luminosity beat long-time CounterStrike champions Natus Vincere and secure $500,000 in prize money. "To have a Brazilian team really be a huge underdog and really upset some great us teams and great european teams is a great storyline," said Sepso.