The evolution of the Call of Duty World League is in city-based franchises, and we’ve been hearing a lot of things about the league ahead of its 2020 debut. News like the rumored franchise costs and more have been pouring out of the seams. This week, the Call of Duty World League named their Commissioner.
OWL Commish Names Faries as CWL Commish
In an interview with ESPN, the current Blizzard Entertainment Overwatch League Commissioner named Johanna Faries as the Activision counterpart league revolving around the widely popular Call of Duty franchise.
“Call of Duty is an incredible franchise…a massive player base … with tons of interest” said OWL Commissioner Nate Nanzer, speaking into the excitement all of the teams at Activision Blizzard are feeling right now, ahead of the Call of Duty World League relaunch and other Call of Duty news.
As Activision and Blizzard are formally connected, the team behind the refreshed Call of Duty franchise league can draw a lot of first-hand knowledge from the creators and team behind the expertly operated Overwatch League. This bodes well for the changes pending for such a popular Esports community.
The Faries Factor
Faries became the Head of Call of Duty Esports at Activision Blizzard last fall, and has already made quite an impact. Now, taking a more public-facing role as the commissioner of the new-look league, Faries is going to have to thwart the negative response to the city-based franchise move. The Call of Duty community is amazingly large, but there is skepticism and resistance to the league changes, which Faries and company will be up against right out of the gate.
Coming to Activision Blizzard from a long-standing role at the National Football League, Faries could very well be the only perfect person for this role. With titles during her time at the NFL like VP of Marketing Strategy & Fan Development and Club Business Development, among many others, Faries has the experience needed to bring this new-look Call of Duty league into the next generation of Esports.
There are still two whole weeks of Call of Duty World League 2019 to be played before there is a champion crowned, so while we look ahead, we still get amazing Call of Duty competition today. However, with the large looming changes to the league structure, this could be the last time we see teams like OpTic Gaming, Reciprocity, Evil Geniuses, and Luminosity Gaming (recent winners of the CWL Fort Worth Major) contending for CoD supremacy.
