Call of Duty<\/em> will adopt a city-based franchising model and begin hosting home games around the world in 2020. Seven teams have been announced, but only one isn\u2019t already a part of Activision Blizzard\u2019s first franchised league, the Overwatch<\/em> League.<\/p>
That team is the one located in Minnesota, owned by WISE Ventures, the investment organization of the Wilf family, who own the NFL\u2019s Minnesota Vikings. This is the family\u2019s first step into esports, but it has high hopes for Activision Blizzard\u2019s second league. The organization already has long-term plans to evaluate building an esports arena on the same campus as the Vikings’ training facility.<\/p>
Brett Diamond, the COO of WISE Ventures Esports, the parent company of the Call of Duty<\/em> League team, talked with Dot Esports about WISE\u2019s interest in Call of Duty<\/em> esports, the Vikings connection, and more.<\/p>
This is WISE\u2019s first move into esports, so why did you guys pursue a <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> League spot over something else?<\/strong><\/h4>Diamond:<\/strong> WISE Ventures, obviously led by the Wilf family, had explored various opportunities in esports over the past few years. It was never important to them to be the first ones into the space, but all along, they had a sense they wanted to get into it when the timing felt right.<\/p>
A lot of it had to do with watching with the evolution and the maturation of the franchise league model after a couple of years. Watching the success of the Overwatch <\/em>League, in particular, and having a lot of faith in what Activision Blizzard is building with Call of Duty<\/em>, that\u2019s what ultimately made the Wilf family feel like this was the right opportunity at the right time. Also, a lot of it had to do with the historic success of the Call of Duty<\/em> franchise. It gave them a comfort level that this was the right opportunity.<\/p>
With the franchise being located in Minnesota, do you plan to build your lineup with Minnesota-based players or will you sign the best available talent regardless of region?<\/strong><\/h4>Our goal will be to bring on board the best available talent. We\u2019re looking for a GM right now\u2014that will be the person that\u2019s really tasked with building the team. I think certainly to the extent that we can find talent with Minnesota roots, that\u2019s obviously a great situation to be in. Any team, whether it\u2019s esports or traditional sports, if you can find a player that\u2019s very successful and that\u2019s from that area, that\u2019s going to resonate with the fans even more.<\/p>
But we want to make sure we put the best team on the field [laughs]\u2014the best team out there to compete. That\u2019s going to be our priority\u2014finding the best players.<\/p>
Do you think your franchise is at a disadvantage when compared to Toronto or Dallas because they\u2019ve been involved in <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports for several years?<\/strong><\/h4>I think there are pros and cons to both. I don\u2019t look at it as it being an advantage or a disadvantage\u2014our situation is different. We know we need to hire some people that have great experience in esports and we\u2019re talking to several people for the coaching role, the GM role, for other roles with the team. And long-term, if we make the right hires for those positions, we\u2019ll be in a good position to succeed.<\/p>
There\u2019s a lot of extremely talented people in the space and we\u2019re really enjoying even going through the process of having these conversations with these candidates because we\u2019re learning a lot with each one of those conversations. Every one of those conversations is really valuable and we\u2019re learning a lot.<\/p>
With the <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> League immediately going to a homestand model, where will the Minnesota <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> franchise play their home games?<\/strong><\/h4>I can\u2019t confirm the specific location simply because we don\u2019t exactly know where it\u2019s going to be yet. We\u2019re talking to several venues in the market and I think we\u2019ve got some really good options, but we just haven\u2019t made a final decision yet. But the nice thing about this market is that there are a lot of good options.<\/p>
We\u2019re extremely excited to bring events here in year one. I think we\u2019ll be in the position to announce it probably in the next month or so.<\/p>
Esports is relatively young, especially when compared to traditional sports like baseball, but where do you see <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports specifically in two or three years?<\/strong><\/h4>The way we look at it is, esports is the next evolution in sports and entertainment. Just like things have evolved over the last 100 years, they\u2019re going to continue to evolve.<\/p>
To answer your question more specifically about Call of Duty<\/em>, we come back to the historic success of the game and the franchise\u2014it\u2019s established, it\u2019s been around for a long time. Certainly from our standpoint, we want to make sure that we have a team and events and an organization that appeals to fans that have been fans of the CWL for a long time, while at the same time, we want to reach out to people that have played the game for a decade-plus but for whatever reason haven\u2019t engaged with the esports side of it.<\/p>
Success is a relative term, but what would success look like to you in the <\/strong>Call of Duty <\/strong><\/em>League?<\/strong><\/h4>It\u2019s an interesting question. I think certainly we want to build a team that\u2019s going to be competitive. Like any team in any sport, we want to be in it to field a competitive team and win, right? On the business side, I\u2019m picturing a sort of \u2018you know it when you see it\u2019 moment.<\/p>
It\u2019s our first home event and hopefully, there\u2019s a great crowd and everybody\u2019s into it. Our team is being introduced and the crowd is cheering and the place is rocking. That\u2019s kind of the moment where we\u2019ll say, \u2018Okay, the initial run out of the gate has been successful.\u2019<\/p>
Long-term, for all of these teams, it\u2019s about building a brand that appeals to both hardcore fans and a broader fanbase as well, while also building sustained success competitively. I think if you can find that sweet spot in any sport, you\u2019re going to be in a good position.<\/p>
How do you turn, for example, a Minnesota Vikings fan that\u2019s never watched esports into a Minnesota <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> fan?<\/strong><\/h4>We\u2019re going to be very, very thoughtful about how we play into the Vikings angle. We want to make sure that we\u2019re not forcing anything on anyone\u2014whether you\u2019re a Vikings fan or a Call of Duty<\/em> fan. I think there\u2019s certainly a lot of overlap there, and probably more overlap for Call of Duty<\/em> than other esports. But we want to be very thoughtful with how we approach that.<\/p>
Even around our announcement on July 1 and since then, we haven\u2019t been putting out a lot on our Vikings social media channels about the Call of Duty<\/em> team. There was a fair amount of media coverage about it, but we\u2019re going to wait until probably sometime in the fall to market more directly to Vikings fans that we feel like fit the profile of someone that would be interested in the Call of Duty<\/em> team.<\/p>
The Wilf family has been incredibly supportive of the Vikings organization with US Bank Stadium and the practice facilities, so we\u2019ll bring that same level of professionalism and dedication to the new sports organization as we build out a practice facility. And in the long-term, we\u2019re going to evaluate building an esports arena on the campus that the Vikings training facility sits on in Eagan, Minnesota. There\u2019s a lot of due diligence that has to go into that\u2014it\u2019s not something any final decisions have been made on\u2014but it\u2019s something we plan to look at and evaluate.<\/p>
At the moment, you\u2019re the only Midwestern team in the <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> League. Is part of reasoning you don\u2019t want to be directly tied to the Vikings because you don\u2019t want to lose out on the untapped potential of the Midwest where there are non-Vikings fans?<\/strong><\/h4>I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it.<\/p>
The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie.<\/p>
There are quite a bit of people that think a city-based franchising model is not a good move for <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports and that it will irreparably harm the esport. What do you have to say to those people?<\/strong><\/h4>We\u2019re not going to ask anybody to give up their old loyalties or affinities. If somebody is a fan of a current Call of Duty <\/em>team that is making the transition to the new league, they can still be a fan of that team and they can be a fan of the Minnesota team. I think it would be misguided for us to try to convince anyone to give up old loyalties and that\u2019s certainly not something we\u2019re not going to do. But I think there\u2019s room for fans to maintain those loyalties and be a fan of the Minnesota team. Now, which team they\u2019ll cheer for when we play each other, I guess we\u2019ll see. Who knows? Hopefully they\u2019ll cheer for us.<\/p>
But we want to build a brand and a team that fans in our region and everywhere can get excited about and be proud to call their own. I will say that based on the feedback we\u2019ve seen on social media, specifically related to our team, there really has been almost no negativity around that. The vast majority of the comments we\u2019re seeing are very positive and people are excited.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brett Diamond believes Minnesota CoD has a bright future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":958,"featured_media":157568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gamurs_wordpress_blocks_hide_tags":true,"_is_affiliated":false,"dotesports_deal_href":"","dotesports_featured_video":"","_notify_users":1,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"invoiceable_action":[],"internal-label":[],"article_type":[],"coauthors":[{"id":958,"display_name":"Preston 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is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/","name":"Dot Esports","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#organization","name":"Dot Esports","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/05103313\/logo-dot_esports-mark-black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/05103313\/logo-dot_esports-mark-black.png","width":300,"height":300,"caption":"Dot 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Co-host of the Ego Chall Podcast. Since discovering esports through the 2013 Call of Duty Championship, Preston has pursued a career in esports and gaming. He graduated from Youngstown State University with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 2021.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.twitch.tv\/egochallpodcast","https:\/\/instagram.com\/presbyers","https:\/\/x.com\/PresByers","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCyBWzIXEkKL1OWjVhrDovMg"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/preston-byers"}]}},"raw_content":"Call of Duty will adopt a city-based franchising model and begin hosting home games around the world in 2020. Seven teams have been announced, but only one isn\u2019t already a part of Activision Blizzard\u2019s first franchised league, the Overwatch League. That team is the one located in Minnesota, owned by WISE Ventures, the investment organization of the Wilf family, who own the NFL\u2019s Minnesota Vikings. This is the family\u2019s first step into esports, but it has high hopes for Activision Blizzard\u2019s second league. The organization already has long-term plans to evaluate building an esports arena on the same campus as the Vikings' training facility. Brett Diamond, the COO of WISE Ventures Esports, the parent company of the Call of Duty League team, talked with Dot Esports about WISE\u2019s interest in Call of Duty esports, the Vikings connection, and more. This is WISE\u2019s first move into esports, so why did you guys pursue a Call of Duty League spot over something else? Diamond: WISE Ventures, obviously led by the Wilf family, had explored various opportunities in esports over the past few years. It was never important to them to be the first ones into the space, but all along, they had a sense they wanted to get into it when the timing felt right. A lot of it had to do with watching with the evolution and the maturation of the franchise league model after a couple of years. Watching the success of the Overwatch League, in particular, and having a lot of faith in what Activision Blizzard is building with Call of Duty, that\u2019s what ultimately made the Wilf family feel like this was the right opportunity at the right time. Also, a lot of it had to do with the historic success of the Call of Duty franchise. It gave them a comfort level that this was the right opportunity. With the franchise being located in Minnesota, do you plan to build your lineup with Minnesota-based players or will you sign the best available talent regardless of region? Our goal will be to bring on board the best available talent. We\u2019re looking for a GM right now\u2014that will be the person that\u2019s really tasked with building the team. I think certainly to the extent that we can find talent with Minnesota roots, that\u2019s obviously a great situation to be in. Any team, whether it\u2019s esports or traditional sports, if you can find a player that\u2019s very successful and that\u2019s from that area, that\u2019s going to resonate with the fans even more. But we want to make sure we put the best team on the field [laughs]\u2014the best team out there to compete. That\u2019s going to be our priority\u2014finding the best players. Do you think your franchise is at a disadvantage when compared to Toronto or Dallas because they\u2019ve been involved in Call of Duty esports for several years? I think there are pros and cons to both. I don\u2019t look at it as it being an advantage or a disadvantage\u2014our situation is different. We know we need to hire some people that have great experience in esports and we\u2019re talking to several people for the coaching role, the GM role, for other roles with the team. And long-term, if we make the right hires for those positions, we\u2019ll be in a good position to succeed. There\u2019s a lot of extremely talented people in the space and we\u2019re really enjoying even going through the process of having these conversations with these candidates because we\u2019re learning a lot with each one of those conversations. Every one of those conversations is really valuable and we\u2019re learning a lot. With the Call of Duty League immediately going to a homestand model, where will the Minnesota Call of Duty franchise play their home games? I can\u2019t confirm the specific location simply because we don\u2019t exactly know where it\u2019s going to be yet. We\u2019re talking to several venues in the market and I think we\u2019ve got some really good options, but we just haven\u2019t made a final decision yet. But the nice thing about this market is that there are a lot of good options. We\u2019re extremely excited to bring events here in year one. I think we\u2019ll be in the position to announce it probably in the next month or so. Esports is relatively young, especially when compared to traditional sports like baseball, but where do you see Call of Duty esports specifically in two or three years? The way we look at it is, esports is the next evolution in sports and entertainment. Just like things have evolved over the last 100 years, they\u2019re going to continue to evolve. To answer your question more specifically about Call of Duty, we come back to the historic success of the game and the franchise\u2014it\u2019s established, it\u2019s been around for a long time. Certainly from our standpoint, we want to make sure that we have a team and events and an organization that appeals to fans that have been fans of the CWL for a long time, while at the same time, we want to reach out to people that have played the game for a decade-plus but for whatever reason haven\u2019t engaged with the esports side of it. Success is a relative term, but what would success look like to you in the Call of Duty League? It\u2019s an interesting question. I think certainly we want to build a team that\u2019s going to be competitive. Like any team in any sport, we want to be in it to field a competitive team and win, right? On the business side, I\u2019m picturing a sort of \u2018you know it when you see it\u2019 moment. It\u2019s our first home event and hopefully, there\u2019s a great crowd and everybody\u2019s into it. Our team is being introduced and the crowd is cheering and the place is rocking. That\u2019s kind of the moment where we\u2019ll say, \u2018Okay, the initial run out of the gate has been successful.\u2019 Long-term, for all of these teams, it\u2019s about building a brand that appeals to both hardcore fans and a broader fanbase as well, while also building sustained success competitively. I think if you can find that sweet spot in any sport, you\u2019re going to be in a good position. How do you turn, for example, a Minnesota Vikings fan that\u2019s never watched esports into a Minnesota Call of Duty fan? We\u2019re going to be very, very thoughtful about how we play into the Vikings angle. We want to make sure that we\u2019re not forcing anything on anyone\u2014whether you\u2019re a Vikings fan or a Call of Duty fan. I think there\u2019s certainly a lot of overlap there, and probably more overlap for Call of Duty than other esports. But we want to be very thoughtful with how we approach that. Even around our announcement on July 1 and since then, we haven\u2019t been putting out a lot on our Vikings social media channels about the Call of Duty team. There was a fair amount of media coverage about it, but we\u2019re going to wait until probably sometime in the fall to market more directly to Vikings fans that we feel like fit the profile of someone that would be interested in the Call of Duty team. The Wilf family has been incredibly supportive of the Vikings organization with US Bank Stadium and the practice facilities, so we\u2019ll bring that same level of professionalism and dedication to the new sports organization as we build out a practice facility. And in the long-term, we\u2019re going to evaluate building an esports arena on the campus that the Vikings training facility sits on in Eagan, Minnesota. There\u2019s a lot of due diligence that has to go into that\u2014it\u2019s not something any final decisions have been made on\u2014but it\u2019s something we plan to look at and evaluate. At the moment, you\u2019re the only Midwestern team in the Call of Duty League. Is part of reasoning you don\u2019t want to be directly tied to the Vikings because you don\u2019t want to lose out on the untapped potential of the Midwest where there are non-Vikings fans? I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it. The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie. There are quite a bit of people that think a city-based franchising model is not a good move for Call of Duty esports and that it will irreparably harm the esport. What do you have to say to those people? We\u2019re not going to ask anybody to give up their old loyalties or affinities. If somebody is a fan of a current Call of Duty team that is making the transition to the new league, they can still be a fan of that team and they can be a fan of the Minnesota team. I think it would be misguided for us to try to convince anyone to give up old loyalties and that\u2019s certainly not something we\u2019re not going to do. But I think there\u2019s room for fans to maintain those loyalties and be a fan of the Minnesota team. Now, which team they\u2019ll cheer for when we play each other, I guess we\u2019ll see. Who knows? Hopefully they\u2019ll cheer for us. But we want to build a brand and a team that fans in our region and everywhere can get excited about and be proud to call their own. I will say that based on the feedback we\u2019ve seen on social media, specifically related to our team, there really has been almost no negativity around that. The vast majority of the comments we\u2019re seeing are very positive and people are excited.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/02170346\/image-57.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=157537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Our goal will be to bring on board the best available talent. We\u2019re looking for a GM right now\u2014that will be the person that\u2019s really tasked with building the team. I think certainly to the extent that we can find talent with Minnesota roots, that\u2019s obviously a great situation to be in. Any team, whether it\u2019s esports or traditional sports, if you can find a player that\u2019s very successful and that\u2019s from that area, that\u2019s going to resonate with the fans even more.<\/p>
But we want to make sure we put the best team on the field [laughs]\u2014the best team out there to compete. That\u2019s going to be our priority\u2014finding the best players.<\/p>
Do you think your franchise is at a disadvantage when compared to Toronto or Dallas because they\u2019ve been involved in <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports for several years?<\/strong><\/h4>I think there are pros and cons to both. I don\u2019t look at it as it being an advantage or a disadvantage\u2014our situation is different. We know we need to hire some people that have great experience in esports and we\u2019re talking to several people for the coaching role, the GM role, for other roles with the team. And long-term, if we make the right hires for those positions, we\u2019ll be in a good position to succeed.<\/p>
There\u2019s a lot of extremely talented people in the space and we\u2019re really enjoying even going through the process of having these conversations with these candidates because we\u2019re learning a lot with each one of those conversations. Every one of those conversations is really valuable and we\u2019re learning a lot.<\/p>
With the <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> League immediately going to a homestand model, where will the Minnesota <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> franchise play their home games?<\/strong><\/h4>I can\u2019t confirm the specific location simply because we don\u2019t exactly know where it\u2019s going to be yet. We\u2019re talking to several venues in the market and I think we\u2019ve got some really good options, but we just haven\u2019t made a final decision yet. But the nice thing about this market is that there are a lot of good options.<\/p>
We\u2019re extremely excited to bring events here in year one. I think we\u2019ll be in the position to announce it probably in the next month or so.<\/p>
Esports is relatively young, especially when compared to traditional sports like baseball, but where do you see <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports specifically in two or three years?<\/strong><\/h4>The way we look at it is, esports is the next evolution in sports and entertainment. Just like things have evolved over the last 100 years, they\u2019re going to continue to evolve.<\/p>
To answer your question more specifically about Call of Duty<\/em>, we come back to the historic success of the game and the franchise\u2014it\u2019s established, it\u2019s been around for a long time. Certainly from our standpoint, we want to make sure that we have a team and events and an organization that appeals to fans that have been fans of the CWL for a long time, while at the same time, we want to reach out to people that have played the game for a decade-plus but for whatever reason haven\u2019t engaged with the esports side of it.<\/p>
Success is a relative term, but what would success look like to you in the <\/strong>Call of Duty <\/strong><\/em>League?<\/strong><\/h4>It\u2019s an interesting question. I think certainly we want to build a team that\u2019s going to be competitive. Like any team in any sport, we want to be in it to field a competitive team and win, right? On the business side, I\u2019m picturing a sort of \u2018you know it when you see it\u2019 moment.<\/p>
It\u2019s our first home event and hopefully, there\u2019s a great crowd and everybody\u2019s into it. Our team is being introduced and the crowd is cheering and the place is rocking. That\u2019s kind of the moment where we\u2019ll say, \u2018Okay, the initial run out of the gate has been successful.\u2019<\/p>
Long-term, for all of these teams, it\u2019s about building a brand that appeals to both hardcore fans and a broader fanbase as well, while also building sustained success competitively. I think if you can find that sweet spot in any sport, you\u2019re going to be in a good position.<\/p>
How do you turn, for example, a Minnesota Vikings fan that\u2019s never watched esports into a Minnesota <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> fan?<\/strong><\/h4>We\u2019re going to be very, very thoughtful about how we play into the Vikings angle. We want to make sure that we\u2019re not forcing anything on anyone\u2014whether you\u2019re a Vikings fan or a Call of Duty<\/em> fan. I think there\u2019s certainly a lot of overlap there, and probably more overlap for Call of Duty<\/em> than other esports. But we want to be very thoughtful with how we approach that.<\/p>
Even around our announcement on July 1 and since then, we haven\u2019t been putting out a lot on our Vikings social media channels about the Call of Duty<\/em> team. There was a fair amount of media coverage about it, but we\u2019re going to wait until probably sometime in the fall to market more directly to Vikings fans that we feel like fit the profile of someone that would be interested in the Call of Duty<\/em> team.<\/p>
The Wilf family has been incredibly supportive of the Vikings organization with US Bank Stadium and the practice facilities, so we\u2019ll bring that same level of professionalism and dedication to the new sports organization as we build out a practice facility. And in the long-term, we\u2019re going to evaluate building an esports arena on the campus that the Vikings training facility sits on in Eagan, Minnesota. There\u2019s a lot of due diligence that has to go into that\u2014it\u2019s not something any final decisions have been made on\u2014but it\u2019s something we plan to look at and evaluate.<\/p>
At the moment, you\u2019re the only Midwestern team in the <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> League. Is part of reasoning you don\u2019t want to be directly tied to the Vikings because you don\u2019t want to lose out on the untapped potential of the Midwest where there are non-Vikings fans?<\/strong><\/h4>I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it.<\/p>
The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie.<\/p>
There are quite a bit of people that think a city-based franchising model is not a good move for <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports and that it will irreparably harm the esport. What do you have to say to those people?<\/strong><\/h4>We\u2019re not going to ask anybody to give up their old loyalties or affinities. If somebody is a fan of a current Call of Duty <\/em>team that is making the transition to the new league, they can still be a fan of that team and they can be a fan of the Minnesota team. I think it would be misguided for us to try to convince anyone to give up old loyalties and that\u2019s certainly not something we\u2019re not going to do. But I think there\u2019s room for fans to maintain those loyalties and be a fan of the Minnesota team. Now, which team they\u2019ll cheer for when we play each other, I guess we\u2019ll see. Who knows? Hopefully they\u2019ll cheer for us.<\/p>
But we want to build a brand and a team that fans in our region and everywhere can get excited about and be proud to call their own. I will say that based on the feedback we\u2019ve seen on social media, specifically related to our team, there really has been almost no negativity around that. The vast majority of the comments we\u2019re seeing are very positive and people are excited.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brett Diamond believes Minnesota CoD has a bright future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":958,"featured_media":157568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gamurs_wordpress_blocks_hide_tags":true,"_is_affiliated":false,"dotesports_deal_href":"","dotesports_featured_video":"","_notify_users":1,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"invoiceable_action":[],"internal-label":[],"article_type":[],"coauthors":[{"id":958,"display_name":"Preston Byers","user_login":"prestonbyers","user_nicename":"preston-byers"}],"class_list":["post-157537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-call-of-duty"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMinnesota\u2019s new CoD franchise is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Brett Diamond believes Minnesota CoD has a bright future.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/call-of-duty\/news\/minnesota-cod-brett-diamond-interview\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Minnesota\u2019s new CoD franchise is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brett 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is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/","name":"Dot Esports","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#organization","name":"Dot Esports","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/05103313\/logo-dot_esports-mark-black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/05103313\/logo-dot_esports-mark-black.png","width":300,"height":300,"caption":"Dot Esports"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DOTesports\/","https:\/\/x.com\/DotEsports","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dotesports\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCckaIn-3KqLYfppkj4DeTAw"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/74b34779d0bfb0520009a4b907cbd35d","name":"Preston Byers","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/17efef87114b2595ab924a16c746d3c1","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/31141913\/Preston-Byers.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/31141913\/Preston-Byers.png","caption":"Preston Byers"},"description":"Dot Esports associate editor. Co-host of the Ego Chall Podcast. Since discovering esports through the 2013 Call of Duty Championship, Preston has pursued a career in esports and gaming. He graduated from Youngstown State University with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 2021.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.twitch.tv\/egochallpodcast","https:\/\/instagram.com\/presbyers","https:\/\/x.com\/PresByers","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCyBWzIXEkKL1OWjVhrDovMg"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/preston-byers"}]}},"raw_content":"Call of Duty will adopt a city-based franchising model and begin hosting home games around the world in 2020. Seven teams have been announced, but only one isn\u2019t already a part of Activision Blizzard\u2019s first franchised league, the Overwatch League. That team is the one located in Minnesota, owned by WISE Ventures, the investment organization of the Wilf family, who own the NFL\u2019s Minnesota Vikings. This is the family\u2019s first step into esports, but it has high hopes for Activision Blizzard\u2019s second league. The organization already has long-term plans to evaluate building an esports arena on the same campus as the Vikings' training facility. Brett Diamond, the COO of WISE Ventures Esports, the parent company of the Call of Duty League team, talked with Dot Esports about WISE\u2019s interest in Call of Duty esports, the Vikings connection, and more. This is WISE\u2019s first move into esports, so why did you guys pursue a Call of Duty League spot over something else? Diamond: WISE Ventures, obviously led by the Wilf family, had explored various opportunities in esports over the past few years. It was never important to them to be the first ones into the space, but all along, they had a sense they wanted to get into it when the timing felt right. A lot of it had to do with watching with the evolution and the maturation of the franchise league model after a couple of years. Watching the success of the Overwatch League, in particular, and having a lot of faith in what Activision Blizzard is building with Call of Duty, that\u2019s what ultimately made the Wilf family feel like this was the right opportunity at the right time. Also, a lot of it had to do with the historic success of the Call of Duty franchise. It gave them a comfort level that this was the right opportunity. With the franchise being located in Minnesota, do you plan to build your lineup with Minnesota-based players or will you sign the best available talent regardless of region? Our goal will be to bring on board the best available talent. We\u2019re looking for a GM right now\u2014that will be the person that\u2019s really tasked with building the team. I think certainly to the extent that we can find talent with Minnesota roots, that\u2019s obviously a great situation to be in. Any team, whether it\u2019s esports or traditional sports, if you can find a player that\u2019s very successful and that\u2019s from that area, that\u2019s going to resonate with the fans even more. But we want to make sure we put the best team on the field [laughs]\u2014the best team out there to compete. That\u2019s going to be our priority\u2014finding the best players. Do you think your franchise is at a disadvantage when compared to Toronto or Dallas because they\u2019ve been involved in Call of Duty esports for several years? I think there are pros and cons to both. I don\u2019t look at it as it being an advantage or a disadvantage\u2014our situation is different. We know we need to hire some people that have great experience in esports and we\u2019re talking to several people for the coaching role, the GM role, for other roles with the team. And long-term, if we make the right hires for those positions, we\u2019ll be in a good position to succeed. There\u2019s a lot of extremely talented people in the space and we\u2019re really enjoying even going through the process of having these conversations with these candidates because we\u2019re learning a lot with each one of those conversations. Every one of those conversations is really valuable and we\u2019re learning a lot. With the Call of Duty League immediately going to a homestand model, where will the Minnesota Call of Duty franchise play their home games? I can\u2019t confirm the specific location simply because we don\u2019t exactly know where it\u2019s going to be yet. We\u2019re talking to several venues in the market and I think we\u2019ve got some really good options, but we just haven\u2019t made a final decision yet. But the nice thing about this market is that there are a lot of good options. We\u2019re extremely excited to bring events here in year one. I think we\u2019ll be in the position to announce it probably in the next month or so. Esports is relatively young, especially when compared to traditional sports like baseball, but where do you see Call of Duty esports specifically in two or three years? The way we look at it is, esports is the next evolution in sports and entertainment. Just like things have evolved over the last 100 years, they\u2019re going to continue to evolve. To answer your question more specifically about Call of Duty, we come back to the historic success of the game and the franchise\u2014it\u2019s established, it\u2019s been around for a long time. Certainly from our standpoint, we want to make sure that we have a team and events and an organization that appeals to fans that have been fans of the CWL for a long time, while at the same time, we want to reach out to people that have played the game for a decade-plus but for whatever reason haven\u2019t engaged with the esports side of it. Success is a relative term, but what would success look like to you in the Call of Duty League? It\u2019s an interesting question. I think certainly we want to build a team that\u2019s going to be competitive. Like any team in any sport, we want to be in it to field a competitive team and win, right? On the business side, I\u2019m picturing a sort of \u2018you know it when you see it\u2019 moment. It\u2019s our first home event and hopefully, there\u2019s a great crowd and everybody\u2019s into it. Our team is being introduced and the crowd is cheering and the place is rocking. That\u2019s kind of the moment where we\u2019ll say, \u2018Okay, the initial run out of the gate has been successful.\u2019 Long-term, for all of these teams, it\u2019s about building a brand that appeals to both hardcore fans and a broader fanbase as well, while also building sustained success competitively. I think if you can find that sweet spot in any sport, you\u2019re going to be in a good position. How do you turn, for example, a Minnesota Vikings fan that\u2019s never watched esports into a Minnesota Call of Duty fan? We\u2019re going to be very, very thoughtful about how we play into the Vikings angle. We want to make sure that we\u2019re not forcing anything on anyone\u2014whether you\u2019re a Vikings fan or a Call of Duty fan. I think there\u2019s certainly a lot of overlap there, and probably more overlap for Call of Duty than other esports. But we want to be very thoughtful with how we approach that. Even around our announcement on July 1 and since then, we haven\u2019t been putting out a lot on our Vikings social media channels about the Call of Duty team. There was a fair amount of media coverage about it, but we\u2019re going to wait until probably sometime in the fall to market more directly to Vikings fans that we feel like fit the profile of someone that would be interested in the Call of Duty team. The Wilf family has been incredibly supportive of the Vikings organization with US Bank Stadium and the practice facilities, so we\u2019ll bring that same level of professionalism and dedication to the new sports organization as we build out a practice facility. And in the long-term, we\u2019re going to evaluate building an esports arena on the campus that the Vikings training facility sits on in Eagan, Minnesota. There\u2019s a lot of due diligence that has to go into that\u2014it\u2019s not something any final decisions have been made on\u2014but it\u2019s something we plan to look at and evaluate. At the moment, you\u2019re the only Midwestern team in the Call of Duty League. Is part of reasoning you don\u2019t want to be directly tied to the Vikings because you don\u2019t want to lose out on the untapped potential of the Midwest where there are non-Vikings fans? I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it. The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie. There are quite a bit of people that think a city-based franchising model is not a good move for Call of Duty esports and that it will irreparably harm the esport. What do you have to say to those people? We\u2019re not going to ask anybody to give up their old loyalties or affinities. If somebody is a fan of a current Call of Duty team that is making the transition to the new league, they can still be a fan of that team and they can be a fan of the Minnesota team. I think it would be misguided for us to try to convince anyone to give up old loyalties and that\u2019s certainly not something we\u2019re not going to do. But I think there\u2019s room for fans to maintain those loyalties and be a fan of the Minnesota team. Now, which team they\u2019ll cheer for when we play each other, I guess we\u2019ll see. Who knows? Hopefully they\u2019ll cheer for us. But we want to build a brand and a team that fans in our region and everywhere can get excited about and be proud to call their own. I will say that based on the feedback we\u2019ve seen on social media, specifically related to our team, there really has been almost no negativity around that. The vast majority of the comments we\u2019re seeing are very positive and people are excited.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/02170346\/image-57.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=157537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I can\u2019t confirm the specific location simply because we don\u2019t exactly know where it\u2019s going to be yet. We\u2019re talking to several venues in the market and I think we\u2019ve got some really good options, but we just haven\u2019t made a final decision yet. But the nice thing about this market is that there are a lot of good options.<\/p>
We\u2019re extremely excited to bring events here in year one. I think we\u2019ll be in the position to announce it probably in the next month or so.<\/p>
Esports is relatively young, especially when compared to traditional sports like baseball, but where do you see <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports specifically in two or three years?<\/strong><\/h4>The way we look at it is, esports is the next evolution in sports and entertainment. Just like things have evolved over the last 100 years, they\u2019re going to continue to evolve.<\/p>
To answer your question more specifically about Call of Duty<\/em>, we come back to the historic success of the game and the franchise\u2014it\u2019s established, it\u2019s been around for a long time. Certainly from our standpoint, we want to make sure that we have a team and events and an organization that appeals to fans that have been fans of the CWL for a long time, while at the same time, we want to reach out to people that have played the game for a decade-plus but for whatever reason haven\u2019t engaged with the esports side of it.<\/p>
Success is a relative term, but what would success look like to you in the <\/strong>Call of Duty <\/strong><\/em>League?<\/strong><\/h4>It\u2019s an interesting question. I think certainly we want to build a team that\u2019s going to be competitive. Like any team in any sport, we want to be in it to field a competitive team and win, right? On the business side, I\u2019m picturing a sort of \u2018you know it when you see it\u2019 moment.<\/p>
It\u2019s our first home event and hopefully, there\u2019s a great crowd and everybody\u2019s into it. Our team is being introduced and the crowd is cheering and the place is rocking. That\u2019s kind of the moment where we\u2019ll say, \u2018Okay, the initial run out of the gate has been successful.\u2019<\/p>
Long-term, for all of these teams, it\u2019s about building a brand that appeals to both hardcore fans and a broader fanbase as well, while also building sustained success competitively. I think if you can find that sweet spot in any sport, you\u2019re going to be in a good position.<\/p>
How do you turn, for example, a Minnesota Vikings fan that\u2019s never watched esports into a Minnesota <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> fan?<\/strong><\/h4>We\u2019re going to be very, very thoughtful about how we play into the Vikings angle. We want to make sure that we\u2019re not forcing anything on anyone\u2014whether you\u2019re a Vikings fan or a Call of Duty<\/em> fan. I think there\u2019s certainly a lot of overlap there, and probably more overlap for Call of Duty<\/em> than other esports. But we want to be very thoughtful with how we approach that.<\/p>
Even around our announcement on July 1 and since then, we haven\u2019t been putting out a lot on our Vikings social media channels about the Call of Duty<\/em> team. There was a fair amount of media coverage about it, but we\u2019re going to wait until probably sometime in the fall to market more directly to Vikings fans that we feel like fit the profile of someone that would be interested in the Call of Duty<\/em> team.<\/p>
The Wilf family has been incredibly supportive of the Vikings organization with US Bank Stadium and the practice facilities, so we\u2019ll bring that same level of professionalism and dedication to the new sports organization as we build out a practice facility. And in the long-term, we\u2019re going to evaluate building an esports arena on the campus that the Vikings training facility sits on in Eagan, Minnesota. There\u2019s a lot of due diligence that has to go into that\u2014it\u2019s not something any final decisions have been made on\u2014but it\u2019s something we plan to look at and evaluate.<\/p>
At the moment, you\u2019re the only Midwestern team in the <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> League. Is part of reasoning you don\u2019t want to be directly tied to the Vikings because you don\u2019t want to lose out on the untapped potential of the Midwest where there are non-Vikings fans?<\/strong><\/h4>I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it.<\/p>
The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie.<\/p>
There are quite a bit of people that think a city-based franchising model is not a good move for <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports and that it will irreparably harm the esport. What do you have to say to those people?<\/strong><\/h4>We\u2019re not going to ask anybody to give up their old loyalties or affinities. If somebody is a fan of a current Call of Duty <\/em>team that is making the transition to the new league, they can still be a fan of that team and they can be a fan of the Minnesota team. I think it would be misguided for us to try to convince anyone to give up old loyalties and that\u2019s certainly not something we\u2019re not going to do. But I think there\u2019s room for fans to maintain those loyalties and be a fan of the Minnesota team. Now, which team they\u2019ll cheer for when we play each other, I guess we\u2019ll see. Who knows? Hopefully they\u2019ll cheer for us.<\/p>
But we want to build a brand and a team that fans in our region and everywhere can get excited about and be proud to call their own. I will say that based on the feedback we\u2019ve seen on social media, specifically related to our team, there really has been almost no negativity around that. The vast majority of the comments we\u2019re seeing are very positive and people are excited.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brett Diamond believes Minnesota CoD has a bright future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":958,"featured_media":157568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gamurs_wordpress_blocks_hide_tags":true,"_is_affiliated":false,"dotesports_deal_href":"","dotesports_featured_video":"","_notify_users":1,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"invoiceable_action":[],"internal-label":[],"article_type":[],"coauthors":[{"id":958,"display_name":"Preston Byers","user_login":"prestonbyers","user_nicename":"preston-byers"}],"class_list":["post-157537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-call-of-duty"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMinnesota\u2019s new CoD franchise is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Brett Diamond believes Minnesota CoD has a bright future.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/call-of-duty\/news\/minnesota-cod-brett-diamond-interview\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Minnesota\u2019s new CoD franchise is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brett 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is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/","name":"Dot Esports","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#organization","name":"Dot Esports","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/05103313\/logo-dot_esports-mark-black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/05103313\/logo-dot_esports-mark-black.png","width":300,"height":300,"caption":"Dot Esports"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DOTesports\/","https:\/\/x.com\/DotEsports","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dotesports\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCckaIn-3KqLYfppkj4DeTAw"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/74b34779d0bfb0520009a4b907cbd35d","name":"Preston Byers","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/17efef87114b2595ab924a16c746d3c1","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/31141913\/Preston-Byers.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/31141913\/Preston-Byers.png","caption":"Preston Byers"},"description":"Dot Esports associate editor. Co-host of the Ego Chall Podcast. Since discovering esports through the 2013 Call of Duty Championship, Preston has pursued a career in esports and gaming. He graduated from Youngstown State University with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 2021.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.twitch.tv\/egochallpodcast","https:\/\/instagram.com\/presbyers","https:\/\/x.com\/PresByers","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCyBWzIXEkKL1OWjVhrDovMg"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/preston-byers"}]}},"raw_content":"Call of Duty will adopt a city-based franchising model and begin hosting home games around the world in 2020. Seven teams have been announced, but only one isn\u2019t already a part of Activision Blizzard\u2019s first franchised league, the Overwatch League. That team is the one located in Minnesota, owned by WISE Ventures, the investment organization of the Wilf family, who own the NFL\u2019s Minnesota Vikings. This is the family\u2019s first step into esports, but it has high hopes for Activision Blizzard\u2019s second league. The organization already has long-term plans to evaluate building an esports arena on the same campus as the Vikings' training facility. Brett Diamond, the COO of WISE Ventures Esports, the parent company of the Call of Duty League team, talked with Dot Esports about WISE\u2019s interest in Call of Duty esports, the Vikings connection, and more. This is WISE\u2019s first move into esports, so why did you guys pursue a Call of Duty League spot over something else? Diamond: WISE Ventures, obviously led by the Wilf family, had explored various opportunities in esports over the past few years. It was never important to them to be the first ones into the space, but all along, they had a sense they wanted to get into it when the timing felt right. A lot of it had to do with watching with the evolution and the maturation of the franchise league model after a couple of years. Watching the success of the Overwatch League, in particular, and having a lot of faith in what Activision Blizzard is building with Call of Duty, that\u2019s what ultimately made the Wilf family feel like this was the right opportunity at the right time. Also, a lot of it had to do with the historic success of the Call of Duty franchise. It gave them a comfort level that this was the right opportunity. With the franchise being located in Minnesota, do you plan to build your lineup with Minnesota-based players or will you sign the best available talent regardless of region? Our goal will be to bring on board the best available talent. We\u2019re looking for a GM right now\u2014that will be the person that\u2019s really tasked with building the team. I think certainly to the extent that we can find talent with Minnesota roots, that\u2019s obviously a great situation to be in. Any team, whether it\u2019s esports or traditional sports, if you can find a player that\u2019s very successful and that\u2019s from that area, that\u2019s going to resonate with the fans even more. But we want to make sure we put the best team on the field [laughs]\u2014the best team out there to compete. That\u2019s going to be our priority\u2014finding the best players. Do you think your franchise is at a disadvantage when compared to Toronto or Dallas because they\u2019ve been involved in Call of Duty esports for several years? I think there are pros and cons to both. I don\u2019t look at it as it being an advantage or a disadvantage\u2014our situation is different. We know we need to hire some people that have great experience in esports and we\u2019re talking to several people for the coaching role, the GM role, for other roles with the team. And long-term, if we make the right hires for those positions, we\u2019ll be in a good position to succeed. There\u2019s a lot of extremely talented people in the space and we\u2019re really enjoying even going through the process of having these conversations with these candidates because we\u2019re learning a lot with each one of those conversations. Every one of those conversations is really valuable and we\u2019re learning a lot. With the Call of Duty League immediately going to a homestand model, where will the Minnesota Call of Duty franchise play their home games? I can\u2019t confirm the specific location simply because we don\u2019t exactly know where it\u2019s going to be yet. We\u2019re talking to several venues in the market and I think we\u2019ve got some really good options, but we just haven\u2019t made a final decision yet. But the nice thing about this market is that there are a lot of good options. We\u2019re extremely excited to bring events here in year one. I think we\u2019ll be in the position to announce it probably in the next month or so. Esports is relatively young, especially when compared to traditional sports like baseball, but where do you see Call of Duty esports specifically in two or three years? The way we look at it is, esports is the next evolution in sports and entertainment. Just like things have evolved over the last 100 years, they\u2019re going to continue to evolve. To answer your question more specifically about Call of Duty, we come back to the historic success of the game and the franchise\u2014it\u2019s established, it\u2019s been around for a long time. Certainly from our standpoint, we want to make sure that we have a team and events and an organization that appeals to fans that have been fans of the CWL for a long time, while at the same time, we want to reach out to people that have played the game for a decade-plus but for whatever reason haven\u2019t engaged with the esports side of it. Success is a relative term, but what would success look like to you in the Call of Duty League? It\u2019s an interesting question. I think certainly we want to build a team that\u2019s going to be competitive. Like any team in any sport, we want to be in it to field a competitive team and win, right? On the business side, I\u2019m picturing a sort of \u2018you know it when you see it\u2019 moment. It\u2019s our first home event and hopefully, there\u2019s a great crowd and everybody\u2019s into it. Our team is being introduced and the crowd is cheering and the place is rocking. That\u2019s kind of the moment where we\u2019ll say, \u2018Okay, the initial run out of the gate has been successful.\u2019 Long-term, for all of these teams, it\u2019s about building a brand that appeals to both hardcore fans and a broader fanbase as well, while also building sustained success competitively. I think if you can find that sweet spot in any sport, you\u2019re going to be in a good position. How do you turn, for example, a Minnesota Vikings fan that\u2019s never watched esports into a Minnesota Call of Duty fan? We\u2019re going to be very, very thoughtful about how we play into the Vikings angle. We want to make sure that we\u2019re not forcing anything on anyone\u2014whether you\u2019re a Vikings fan or a Call of Duty fan. I think there\u2019s certainly a lot of overlap there, and probably more overlap for Call of Duty than other esports. But we want to be very thoughtful with how we approach that. Even around our announcement on July 1 and since then, we haven\u2019t been putting out a lot on our Vikings social media channels about the Call of Duty team. There was a fair amount of media coverage about it, but we\u2019re going to wait until probably sometime in the fall to market more directly to Vikings fans that we feel like fit the profile of someone that would be interested in the Call of Duty team. The Wilf family has been incredibly supportive of the Vikings organization with US Bank Stadium and the practice facilities, so we\u2019ll bring that same level of professionalism and dedication to the new sports organization as we build out a practice facility. And in the long-term, we\u2019re going to evaluate building an esports arena on the campus that the Vikings training facility sits on in Eagan, Minnesota. There\u2019s a lot of due diligence that has to go into that\u2014it\u2019s not something any final decisions have been made on\u2014but it\u2019s something we plan to look at and evaluate. At the moment, you\u2019re the only Midwestern team in the Call of Duty League. Is part of reasoning you don\u2019t want to be directly tied to the Vikings because you don\u2019t want to lose out on the untapped potential of the Midwest where there are non-Vikings fans? I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it. The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie. There are quite a bit of people that think a city-based franchising model is not a good move for Call of Duty esports and that it will irreparably harm the esport. What do you have to say to those people? We\u2019re not going to ask anybody to give up their old loyalties or affinities. If somebody is a fan of a current Call of Duty team that is making the transition to the new league, they can still be a fan of that team and they can be a fan of the Minnesota team. I think it would be misguided for us to try to convince anyone to give up old loyalties and that\u2019s certainly not something we\u2019re not going to do. But I think there\u2019s room for fans to maintain those loyalties and be a fan of the Minnesota team. Now, which team they\u2019ll cheer for when we play each other, I guess we\u2019ll see. Who knows? Hopefully they\u2019ll cheer for us. But we want to build a brand and a team that fans in our region and everywhere can get excited about and be proud to call their own. I will say that based on the feedback we\u2019ve seen on social media, specifically related to our team, there really has been almost no negativity around that. The vast majority of the comments we\u2019re seeing are very positive and people are excited.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/02170346\/image-57.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=157537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It\u2019s an interesting question. I think certainly we want to build a team that\u2019s going to be competitive. Like any team in any sport, we want to be in it to field a competitive team and win, right? On the business side, I\u2019m picturing a sort of \u2018you know it when you see it\u2019 moment.<\/p>
It\u2019s our first home event and hopefully, there\u2019s a great crowd and everybody\u2019s into it. Our team is being introduced and the crowd is cheering and the place is rocking. That\u2019s kind of the moment where we\u2019ll say, \u2018Okay, the initial run out of the gate has been successful.\u2019<\/p>
Long-term, for all of these teams, it\u2019s about building a brand that appeals to both hardcore fans and a broader fanbase as well, while also building sustained success competitively. I think if you can find that sweet spot in any sport, you\u2019re going to be in a good position.<\/p>
How do you turn, for example, a Minnesota Vikings fan that\u2019s never watched esports into a Minnesota <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> fan?<\/strong><\/h4>We\u2019re going to be very, very thoughtful about how we play into the Vikings angle. We want to make sure that we\u2019re not forcing anything on anyone\u2014whether you\u2019re a Vikings fan or a Call of Duty<\/em> fan. I think there\u2019s certainly a lot of overlap there, and probably more overlap for Call of Duty<\/em> than other esports. But we want to be very thoughtful with how we approach that.<\/p>
Even around our announcement on July 1 and since then, we haven\u2019t been putting out a lot on our Vikings social media channels about the Call of Duty<\/em> team. There was a fair amount of media coverage about it, but we\u2019re going to wait until probably sometime in the fall to market more directly to Vikings fans that we feel like fit the profile of someone that would be interested in the Call of Duty<\/em> team.<\/p>
The Wilf family has been incredibly supportive of the Vikings organization with US Bank Stadium and the practice facilities, so we\u2019ll bring that same level of professionalism and dedication to the new sports organization as we build out a practice facility. And in the long-term, we\u2019re going to evaluate building an esports arena on the campus that the Vikings training facility sits on in Eagan, Minnesota. There\u2019s a lot of due diligence that has to go into that\u2014it\u2019s not something any final decisions have been made on\u2014but it\u2019s something we plan to look at and evaluate.<\/p>
At the moment, you\u2019re the only Midwestern team in the <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> League. Is part of reasoning you don\u2019t want to be directly tied to the Vikings because you don\u2019t want to lose out on the untapped potential of the Midwest where there are non-Vikings fans?<\/strong><\/h4>I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it.<\/p>
The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie.<\/p>
There are quite a bit of people that think a city-based franchising model is not a good move for <\/strong>Call of Duty<\/strong><\/em> esports and that it will irreparably harm the esport. What do you have to say to those people?<\/strong><\/h4>We\u2019re not going to ask anybody to give up their old loyalties or affinities. If somebody is a fan of a current Call of Duty <\/em>team that is making the transition to the new league, they can still be a fan of that team and they can be a fan of the Minnesota team. I think it would be misguided for us to try to convince anyone to give up old loyalties and that\u2019s certainly not something we\u2019re not going to do. But I think there\u2019s room for fans to maintain those loyalties and be a fan of the Minnesota team. Now, which team they\u2019ll cheer for when we play each other, I guess we\u2019ll see. Who knows? Hopefully they\u2019ll cheer for us.<\/p>
But we want to build a brand and a team that fans in our region and everywhere can get excited about and be proud to call their own. I will say that based on the feedback we\u2019ve seen on social media, specifically related to our team, there really has been almost no negativity around that. The vast majority of the comments we\u2019re seeing are very positive and people are excited.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brett Diamond believes Minnesota CoD has a bright future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":958,"featured_media":157568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gamurs_wordpress_blocks_hide_tags":true,"_is_affiliated":false,"dotesports_deal_href":"","dotesports_featured_video":"","_notify_users":1,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"invoiceable_action":[],"internal-label":[],"article_type":[],"coauthors":[{"id":958,"display_name":"Preston Byers","user_login":"prestonbyers","user_nicename":"preston-byers"}],"class_list":["post-157537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-call-of-duty"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMinnesota\u2019s new CoD franchise is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Brett Diamond believes Minnesota CoD has a bright future.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/call-of-duty\/news\/minnesota-cod-brett-diamond-interview\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Minnesota\u2019s new CoD franchise is considering building an esports arena near Vikings training facility\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brett 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Esports"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DOTesports\/","https:\/\/x.com\/DotEsports","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dotesports\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCckaIn-3KqLYfppkj4DeTAw"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/74b34779d0bfb0520009a4b907cbd35d","name":"Preston Byers","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/17efef87114b2595ab924a16c746d3c1","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/31141913\/Preston-Byers.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/31141913\/Preston-Byers.png","caption":"Preston Byers"},"description":"Dot Esports associate editor. Co-host of the Ego Chall Podcast. Since discovering esports through the 2013 Call of Duty Championship, Preston has pursued a career in esports and gaming. He graduated from Youngstown State University with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 2021.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.twitch.tv\/egochallpodcast","https:\/\/instagram.com\/presbyers","https:\/\/x.com\/PresByers","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCyBWzIXEkKL1OWjVhrDovMg"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/preston-byers"}]}},"raw_content":"Call of Duty will adopt a city-based franchising model and begin hosting home games around the world in 2020. Seven teams have been announced, but only one isn\u2019t already a part of Activision Blizzard\u2019s first franchised league, the Overwatch League. That team is the one located in Minnesota, owned by WISE Ventures, the investment organization of the Wilf family, who own the NFL\u2019s Minnesota Vikings. This is the family\u2019s first step into esports, but it has high hopes for Activision Blizzard\u2019s second league. The organization already has long-term plans to evaluate building an esports arena on the same campus as the Vikings' training facility. Brett Diamond, the COO of WISE Ventures Esports, the parent company of the Call of Duty League team, talked with Dot Esports about WISE\u2019s interest in Call of Duty esports, the Vikings connection, and more. This is WISE\u2019s first move into esports, so why did you guys pursue a Call of Duty League spot over something else? Diamond: WISE Ventures, obviously led by the Wilf family, had explored various opportunities in esports over the past few years. It was never important to them to be the first ones into the space, but all along, they had a sense they wanted to get into it when the timing felt right. A lot of it had to do with watching with the evolution and the maturation of the franchise league model after a couple of years. Watching the success of the Overwatch League, in particular, and having a lot of faith in what Activision Blizzard is building with Call of Duty, that\u2019s what ultimately made the Wilf family feel like this was the right opportunity at the right time. Also, a lot of it had to do with the historic success of the Call of Duty franchise. It gave them a comfort level that this was the right opportunity. With the franchise being located in Minnesota, do you plan to build your lineup with Minnesota-based players or will you sign the best available talent regardless of region? Our goal will be to bring on board the best available talent. We\u2019re looking for a GM right now\u2014that will be the person that\u2019s really tasked with building the team. I think certainly to the extent that we can find talent with Minnesota roots, that\u2019s obviously a great situation to be in. Any team, whether it\u2019s esports or traditional sports, if you can find a player that\u2019s very successful and that\u2019s from that area, that\u2019s going to resonate with the fans even more. But we want to make sure we put the best team on the field [laughs]\u2014the best team out there to compete. That\u2019s going to be our priority\u2014finding the best players. Do you think your franchise is at a disadvantage when compared to Toronto or Dallas because they\u2019ve been involved in Call of Duty esports for several years? I think there are pros and cons to both. I don\u2019t look at it as it being an advantage or a disadvantage\u2014our situation is different. We know we need to hire some people that have great experience in esports and we\u2019re talking to several people for the coaching role, the GM role, for other roles with the team. And long-term, if we make the right hires for those positions, we\u2019ll be in a good position to succeed. There\u2019s a lot of extremely talented people in the space and we\u2019re really enjoying even going through the process of having these conversations with these candidates because we\u2019re learning a lot with each one of those conversations. Every one of those conversations is really valuable and we\u2019re learning a lot. With the Call of Duty League immediately going to a homestand model, where will the Minnesota Call of Duty franchise play their home games? I can\u2019t confirm the specific location simply because we don\u2019t exactly know where it\u2019s going to be yet. We\u2019re talking to several venues in the market and I think we\u2019ve got some really good options, but we just haven\u2019t made a final decision yet. But the nice thing about this market is that there are a lot of good options. We\u2019re extremely excited to bring events here in year one. I think we\u2019ll be in the position to announce it probably in the next month or so. Esports is relatively young, especially when compared to traditional sports like baseball, but where do you see Call of Duty esports specifically in two or three years? The way we look at it is, esports is the next evolution in sports and entertainment. Just like things have evolved over the last 100 years, they\u2019re going to continue to evolve. To answer your question more specifically about Call of Duty, we come back to the historic success of the game and the franchise\u2014it\u2019s established, it\u2019s been around for a long time. Certainly from our standpoint, we want to make sure that we have a team and events and an organization that appeals to fans that have been fans of the CWL for a long time, while at the same time, we want to reach out to people that have played the game for a decade-plus but for whatever reason haven\u2019t engaged with the esports side of it. Success is a relative term, but what would success look like to you in the Call of Duty League? It\u2019s an interesting question. I think certainly we want to build a team that\u2019s going to be competitive. Like any team in any sport, we want to be in it to field a competitive team and win, right? On the business side, I\u2019m picturing a sort of \u2018you know it when you see it\u2019 moment. It\u2019s our first home event and hopefully, there\u2019s a great crowd and everybody\u2019s into it. Our team is being introduced and the crowd is cheering and the place is rocking. That\u2019s kind of the moment where we\u2019ll say, \u2018Okay, the initial run out of the gate has been successful.\u2019 Long-term, for all of these teams, it\u2019s about building a brand that appeals to both hardcore fans and a broader fanbase as well, while also building sustained success competitively. I think if you can find that sweet spot in any sport, you\u2019re going to be in a good position. How do you turn, for example, a Minnesota Vikings fan that\u2019s never watched esports into a Minnesota Call of Duty fan? We\u2019re going to be very, very thoughtful about how we play into the Vikings angle. We want to make sure that we\u2019re not forcing anything on anyone\u2014whether you\u2019re a Vikings fan or a Call of Duty fan. I think there\u2019s certainly a lot of overlap there, and probably more overlap for Call of Duty than other esports. But we want to be very thoughtful with how we approach that. Even around our announcement on July 1 and since then, we haven\u2019t been putting out a lot on our Vikings social media channels about the Call of Duty team. There was a fair amount of media coverage about it, but we\u2019re going to wait until probably sometime in the fall to market more directly to Vikings fans that we feel like fit the profile of someone that would be interested in the Call of Duty team. The Wilf family has been incredibly supportive of the Vikings organization with US Bank Stadium and the practice facilities, so we\u2019ll bring that same level of professionalism and dedication to the new sports organization as we build out a practice facility. And in the long-term, we\u2019re going to evaluate building an esports arena on the campus that the Vikings training facility sits on in Eagan, Minnesota. There\u2019s a lot of due diligence that has to go into that\u2014it\u2019s not something any final decisions have been made on\u2014but it\u2019s something we plan to look at and evaluate. At the moment, you\u2019re the only Midwestern team in the Call of Duty League. Is part of reasoning you don\u2019t want to be directly tied to the Vikings because you don\u2019t want to lose out on the untapped potential of the Midwest where there are non-Vikings fans? I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it. The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie. There are quite a bit of people that think a city-based franchising model is not a good move for Call of Duty esports and that it will irreparably harm the esport. What do you have to say to those people? We\u2019re not going to ask anybody to give up their old loyalties or affinities. If somebody is a fan of a current Call of Duty team that is making the transition to the new league, they can still be a fan of that team and they can be a fan of the Minnesota team. I think it would be misguided for us to try to convince anyone to give up old loyalties and that\u2019s certainly not something we\u2019re not going to do. But I think there\u2019s room for fans to maintain those loyalties and be a fan of the Minnesota team. Now, which team they\u2019ll cheer for when we play each other, I guess we\u2019ll see. Who knows? Hopefully they\u2019ll cheer for us. But we want to build a brand and a team that fans in our region and everywhere can get excited about and be proud to call their own. I will say that based on the feedback we\u2019ve seen on social media, specifically related to our team, there really has been almost no negativity around that. The vast majority of the comments we\u2019re seeing are very positive and people are excited.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/02170346\/image-57.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=157537"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=157537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I think that\u2019s pretty right. The way we want to position it is, if you\u2019re a Vikings fan and you want to see that connection, there will be subtle connection. We haven\u2019t announced the team name or the branding, but there will be some nods in the direction of the football team\u2014whether that\u2019s in colors or different things. But it\u2019s not going to be so upfront that if you\u2019re not a Vikings fan, you\u2019re not going to embrace it.<\/p>
The way I probably can best describe it is that we want there to be subtle ties from a branding and connection standpoint between the new organization and the Vikings, but we don\u2019t want to do it in a way that if you\u2019re in Wisconsin and a Packers fan, you\u2019re not gonna want to be a fan of this team because there\u2019s clearly a Vikings tie.<\/p>
