The Call of Duty League suffered a power outage because of a snowstorm in Columbus, OH on Sunday, Jan. 22.
A snowstorm in Colombus knocked out the power at the Esports Engine Studio in Colombus, Ohio, forcing the Call of Duty League stream to go down.
Colombus was right in the middle of a severe weather warning for snow during the broadcast on Jan. 22. The stream lost its feed when the power outage occurred, showing nothing but a black screen with music running over the top of it.
Power went out in the midst of a huge match between the Los Angeles Guerrillas and Minnesota ROKKR. At the stage of the match where the broadcast fell, it was 2-1 to the LA team.
Problems persisted and it got to a point where the CDL had to move proceedings on without a stream. The two teams continued to play against each other and went into map four of the series; an Al Bagra Fortress Hardpoint.
General manager of the Call of Duty League, Daniel Tsay, announced on Twitter that they would continue playing during the snowstorm.
"Our broadcast studio has lost power due to a snowstorm," he confirmed. "The team has been working for 20 minutes plus, to get it back up. At this point, we are resuming the LAG-MIN matchup off air."
The match did indeed continue, with Guerrillas eventually securing the win in the map four that was not broadcast. Alec "Arcitys" Sanderson posted a screenshot of the scoreboard on Twitter just to make sure everyone was able to see who did and didn't perform in the series decider.
The snowstorm persists
With the snowstorm continuing, the Call of Duty League had to try and run an audible for the last matchup of the day. Atlanta FaZe were scheduled to take on the current Major champions, New York Subliners in a marquee contest.
Because of the lack of power in the studio and not being able to get any of the studio equipment functional in time, the CDL had to resort to simply broadcasting nothing but straight gameplay.
The Hot Hands Lounge, the company that handles all of the observing in the Call of Duty League, stepped in to stream the match feed through to the Call of Duty Twitch channel.
Call of Duty League being back on Twitch actually really helped them in this situation. They did not have to rely on casters for commentary for the game as they now have a plethora of partnered watch party streams.
One of those streams includes the legendary Seth "Scump" Abner, who has out-done the CDL itself in terms of stream viewership on the first weekend of his retirement.
Thomas "ZooMaa" Paparatto has also had one of the most successful watch-party streams this week. His podcast, "The Flank" is one of the most well-regarded shows in the entire competitive Call of Duty scene.
Not their first rodeo
Call of Duty League, whether fortunate or not, are used to situations like this. Massive delays have occurred often in the last year or so with many different examples to choose from.
In the last stage of qualifiers during the Vanguard season, Los Angeles Guerrillas were in the midst of a series with the London Royal Ravens when technical difficulties hit.
Those complications meant that the series lasted a whole four hours, for five maps of Call of Duty. That series was eventually won by LAG in reverse sweep fashion.
Even at Champs last season, a two-hour delay happened thanks to an audio issue for former world champion Ian "Crimsix" Porter. The CDL are not debutants when it comes to dealing with issues out of their control.
In hindsight, the Call of Duty League dealt with the snowstorm situation really well. It was completely out of their hands and rushing through the match off-stream was the correct call. There was no need to keep people waiting for the last match on a Sunday night.
This season has been really improved in terms of delays and waiting around in-between maps and series. Let's hope that continues for the rest of the year.
Keep up with esports.gg for more Call of Duty news and notes.