According to reports, the United States Army funded a series of Call of Duty tournaments on Twitch in order to expand their demographic and gain access to more Blacks and Latinos (between the ages of 18-24) as a means of recruiting.
In-house Army documents revealed that sponsorships for a fair amount of distinguished streamers were distributed periodically in 2021. A portion of the paperwork obtained by Motherboard wrote, “Focus on the growth of females, Black & Hispanics.” But when the publisher for Call of Duty (Activision Blizzard) got bombarded with sexual harassment allegations, the Army discontinued this investment in the gaming industry.
Details about the aforementioned initiative reveal that the Army planned on allocating $750,000 to a Call of Duty esports tournament that would have been a collaborative effort with Paramount+. The Army also intended to pay a streamer named Stonemountain64 $250,000. His platform on Youtube has surpassed 2 million subscribers largely due to his entertaining gameplay during live-streaming sessions of Call of Duty: Warzone. Other popular gamers mentioned in the document were Swagg and Alex Zedra. The Army also planned on funding a Call of Duty tournament amongst HBCU students for 1 million. In addition, $300,000 was authorized for an esports team called OpTic Chicago, $675,000 on an endeavor with WWE, and $600,000 with IGN, a famous video game-based website.