Call of Duty League refs drop massive opening week blunder for 2023-24 Season

The Call of Duty League is back and more fierce than ever before, despite the future of the franchised esports system being put under the microscope and a move to YouTube Gaming for the broadcast upsetting fans.

Amid the uncertainty though, all twelve Call of Duty League teams have now got their 2023-24 campaigns underway in what appears to be the most stacked esports season we've ever had, with a number of stalwarts firing on all cylinders and rookies putting up impressive numbers in the nuanced game style.

But one team has already been on the receiving end of some controversy, as the CDL officials dropped the ball, resulting in a nail-biting Hardpoint match being swung in the wrong direction.

Call of Duty League officials incorrectly set up opening weekend match

Click to enlarge

With the Call of Duty esports calendar now underway for the Modern Warfare 3 era, Sledgehammer Games has yet to properly implement the rules into the title, leaving it up to League officials to set up each game mode and map with the right set of regulations.

But in the match between Seattle Surge and Boston Breach, the opening Hardpoint round on Invasion was not set up properly.

The referees in charge of the game had not removed the opening Hardpoint Objective Delay (a rule deployed in public matches where the Hardpoint hills don't open for the first ten seconds of the map, but shouldn't be in the CDL).

This meant that Seattle Surge lost out on the opening four seconds of the Hardpoint which they won the race to control, and therefore were robbed of important points that could have swung the game.

Although the four-point deficit doesn't seem much in a game where you race to 250, the knock-on effect of this also meant that each early rotation in the game was also docked four points, and Seattle Surge eventually lost the game on the final hill by five seconds.

Call of Duty League rules blames teams for official's blunders

Usually, a potentially game-swinging error would result in a replay of the map, but instead, the Call of Duty League insisted that it was the players' fault for not raising the issue at the start of the match.

As pointed out by CDL Intel, the rulebook says, "After 2 minutes of gameplay, Game of Record will be established and no restarts will be made for incorrect game settings," meaning that players would have had to raise the issue within the first two minutes of the game, not after it finishes.

Thankfully for Seattle Surge, they went on to win the next three rounds and won the tie 3-1, but that hasn't stopped fans begging for a correct CDL Game Mode variant to be added ahead of Ranked in Season 1 Reloaded.