Tickets for Call of Duty League Launch Weekend are currently on presale, and fans will be paying through the nose.
Starting at $25 USD just to get into the venue for a single day ($100 is the season pass price for the venue) and with only a standing spot, up to a whopping $150 per day ($550 for the season pass) for the Valhalla VIP Pass, the pricing seems to leave a lot to be desired.
For example, value for money.
The launch weekend, set for January 24th through 26th of the coming year, will be hosted by the WISE Ventures’ Minnesota Røkkr and held at The Armory venue in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that has a 8,400-person capacity. All 12 teams are set to compete throughout the three days. If you’d only like to pop in one day and you’re fine with standing, then $25 is all you’ll have to cash out. But if you’d like to sit - and even that is not guaranteed since the seating is on a first come, first serve basis - then you’ll have to shell out $65, which is quite the jump.
Want to reserve a seat? Add another 10 bucks to the previous one. And if you want to sit in a really, really nice spot, you’ll have to come up with $150 per day for VIP treatment, with a few other goodies thrown in. Those include a dedicated entrance, a Røkkr Launch Weekend shirt, and a venue tour.
If one day just doesn’t cut it to you, you’ll have the opportunity to acquire a season ticket. This includes both the launch weekend and the Røkkr Home Series weekend that will be held May 9th and 10th, as published on the Armory website. Other than the usual deal that you get with the single-day ticket, except on a multi-day basis, season ticket holders will also receive Røkkr logo hats, a launch poster, meet and greet with the players and staff, as well as first access to merch, launches, team events, etc.
The price for the season pass starts from $100 for just the venue pass, over $235 for floor access, $275 for reserved seating, and up to $550 for VIP. All of these come with a discount if purchased on November 12th and 13th during the exclusive presale. According to TicketMaster, the public sale starts Friday, November 15th at 10 am CST.
The prices seem steep for what is only a maximum of five days watching Call of Duty matches, but in the CoD competition world, there is nothing to compare them to, considering that this is the League’s inaugural season. But the world of esports has more than enough similar events: for example, this year’s World Championship for League of Legends cost from EUR 15 (USD 16.50) for weekdays and EUR 20 (USD 22) for weekends, to a maximum of EUR 80 (USD 88) for platinum with the best location for the finals. Comparatively, a single day VIP pass for a normal match at CoD League costs almost double that.
Will this affect ticket sales? It’s a bit too early to tell. Although fans are able to see the vast differences between CoD and other esport tournaments, it is possible that they are willing to pay as much as they have to in order to attend this event. But the pricing may well pose an obstacle to people who would otherwise gladly be there.
Source: Armory
