Activision Blizzard wants to see Call of Duty at the Olympics

Activision’s Call of Duty franchise has been known as one of the pillars in online gaming, selling more than 250 million copies since debut in 2003  to become one of the best-selling titles of all-time. The game recently transitioned into a widely-followed eSport series, where gamers and curious viewers watch professional players shoot it out in tournaments that are live-streamed.

With the possibility of skateboarding and surfing as new sports in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, will video games be next? Activision sure hopes so. The CoD publisher shared its view via the director of brand development Jay Puryear, who said there’s a future for such a thing.

“eSports could take the leap to the international stage—like how the X Games started. People watch it and start following it,” asserts Puryear, director of brand development for Activision-owned Treyarch studio. “When I talk about [Call of Duty] in the Olympics, as the sport continues to grow, consuming content through streaming is part of this generation’s culture and part of that is watching players at the top of their game.”

It may not be the Olympics…yet, but this year’s Call of Duty Championships are scheduled for the Los Angeles Forum on Labor Day weekend, where contestants will battle for more than $2 million in prize money.