Overview:

The Call of Duty League 2024 season was a tremendously rewarding project. It was the first season I would work on the CDL, and led to some incredible moments and pieces of content. There were two media days, 5 events, and weekly online qualifiers which demanded new content each iteration. By the end of the year there were 161 unique video deliverables, 5 event photo galleries, and a slew of content directly posted on social media garnering well over 36 million impressions. The final culmination of the year was in Dallas, Texas for the Championship Tournament. A packed home arena saw the OpTic Texas team cement their glory as the champions against the New York Subliners in a best of 9 series, ending at map 6 for a decisive 6-1 win. It was a movie-like ending, seeing the home team win the Championship after earlier poor performances. Because of the massive success of the event and the broadcast, the 46th Annual Sports Emmys nominated the 2024 Call of Duty League Championship Weekend for the Outstanding Esports Championship Coverage award.

Deliverables:

Show Opens, Team Heroshots, Player Headshots, Player Video Headshots, Top 5 Videos, Entertainment Content, Awards Videos, Event B-Roll Coverage, Event Photography, Community Update

Collaborators:

Activision, ESL FACEIT Group, Loose Films

Challenges:

Media Day is a 10-hour window of time to usher 12 teams of 4 players through several stations. They must get their heroshots, headshots, social media bits, and other necessary content. It must then be turned around and ready to air live on broadcast within 24 hours. It is a fast-paced environment with several moving parts and lots of surprises. Sometimes players are double booked, teams forget to send jerseys with their players, or… someone simply gets lost. With proper planning, time management, and a lot of patience, the production crew was able to successfully prep, build, film, and complete post production on time and on target.