According to a report from eSports Observer, Major League Gaming has sold off majority of its assets to Activision Blizzard for over $46 million.
Apparently, MLG’s board of directors agreed to sell majority of assets to Activision Blizzard on December 21st, and a letter was sent out on Dec. 22nd to shareholders stating that the deal was approved. eSports Observer reports that MLG’s current CEO Sundance DiGiovanni has been removed from the CEO position and been replaced by Greg Chisholm, former CFO of Major League Gaming. MLG has had a rough time recently. 2015 was actually their first year they returned a profit, but the company has been in debt for quite a well. This deal reportedly pays off MLG’s debt and liquidates the company into Activision Blizzard.
It is not clear exactly what will happen to Major League Gaming as an entity going forward; eSports Observer claims that this is the end of MLG, but that has not been confirmed.
Major League Gaming does in fact have plans for 2016 in Counter Strike and Halo. They’ve announced a CS:GO Major event in early April and have stated they are hosting the North American Halo World Championship event. It is not clear if these ventures will still occur, but a possibility exists that those events already announced will have to occur because of prior contracts.
Activision Blizzard has been expanding their role greatly in eSports over the last several months. In October, Activision Blizzard hired former ESPN CEO and co-founder of NFL Network, Steve Bornstein, and co-founder and former MLG President, Mike Sepso, to start a new eSports Media Networks Division. More recently, Chris Puckett, a former caster at MLG, has joined Activision Blizzard in this same Media Networks Division.
In addition, Major League Gaming lost their top tier place in Call of Duty eSports when Activision stated that ESL will be hosting the Pro Division of the Call of Duty World League. From Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 through Advanced Warfare, MLG was in charge of hosting any Pro Leagues in North America.
Major League Gaming and Activision Blizzard have not announced or confirmed anything about this.
We will update as we learn more.
