A lot of prominent members of the gaming and esports communities started a campaign on Oct. 13 for Xbox’s head Phil Spencer to resurrect Major League Gaming (MLG) as soon as Microsoft officially acquired Activision Blizzard on the same day.
MLG organized professional tournaments for a lot of games, ranging from FPS titles such as Halo, Call of Duty, and CS:GO to fighting games like Super Smash Bros. Melee and Mortal Kombat, since it was founded in 2002. The company was acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2016 but was left aside by the Activision execs, who preferred to organize franchised leagues for its prominent games—Overwatch and CoD.
Now that Microsoft officially owns Activision Blizzard, one of MLG’s founding employees Adam Apicella is spearheading a campaign for Spencer to bring MLG back and build an esports ecosystem for Activision Blizzard games: Halo, CoD, World of Warcraft, Gears of War, Hearthstone, and Overwatch.
After Apicella made the request to Spencer and offered to be a part of MLG’s resurrection, other prominent voices in the scene showed their support for this cause, including 100 Thieves’ co-owner and content creator CouRage, OpTic Gaming’s former CoD pro and current streamer Anthony “Methodz” Zinni, and industry personality Jake Lucky.
Apicella provided more details on what he envisions for a possible MLG comeback in a conversation with veteran esports host and interviewer SirScoots.
“Microsoft needs to have a marketing plan for games operated internally that utilizes esports as a vehicle,” Apicella wrote.
Last year when Microsoft began the process of buying Activision Blizzard, Dot Esports brainstormed what this could mean for the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League. Nowadays, the future of the Overwatch League is uncertain and questions surround the fate of the CDL, too.
Spencer hasn’t replied yet to any of the requests begging for Microsoft to bring back MLG. For now, all that esports fans can hope for is that the Xbox head considers the idea of organizing tournaments under the MLG banner and building a more healthy ecosystem for the games.
