In addition, the league plays in a tournament point system and playoffs format rather than the use of promotion and relegation used commonly in other esports and non-North American leagues, with players on the roster being assured a minimum annual salary, benefits, and a portion of winnings and revenue-sharing based on how that team performs.

The game used depends on the most recent installment of the series, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022) being used for the 2023 season.

The top eight teams at the end of season based on points claim a berth in the playoffs.

[5] To standardize play at each homestand weekend, Activision constructed a transportable esports stage with input from each of the teams.

[3] To support viewership, Activision studios Infinity Ward and Beenox created a server architecture for the Call of Duty games, the CODCaster, that enables a match to be viewed from multiple different angles and identify which angles have the most exciting action to follow, as to allow the commentators and producers of the broadcast events to help show key action in the match.

[6] Activision also established a Call of Duty Challengers series for amateur players to compete in matches and potentially be played into teams that vie for a US$1 millionprize pool alongside the main League season.

Challengers contains all of the up-and-coming players that are striving to enter the official Call of Duty League.

The 2020 Challengers season offered a massive prize pool of $1,000,000 to be given out through a series of tournaments.

Owing to the vast number of people trying to make it to the Call of Duty League, it would be very difficult to find the best players without the addition of these points.

This has changed the format to where players will play in a "Cup" or tournament every weekend in order to compete for prizes and pro points.

In comparison to the Overwatch League, the CDL has made a lot more revenue and has reached a larger audience due to several aspects.

[14] Initially, the CDL announced that they would be running a regular season format culminating in postseason playoffs.

However, after criticism from the Call of Duty esports community, the league elected to switch to a tournament system, which was officially announced in January 2020.

[17] In the days prior to the launch of the inaugural season, Activision announced it had made a multiyear deal with Google for all of its esports content, including the CDL, to be exclusively shown through YouTube.

[22] On July 5, 2020, the Call of Duty league announced that the postseason would also be played online as a result of the pandemic.

[26] Over time the league has seen multiple teams rebrand by either relocating, merging with other organizations or being sold to other ownership groups.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic only 3 homestand style events were held, with team owners and players voting to have the league move online for the remainder of the season.

[27] The Grand Finals were held online, on August 30, in which the regular season number 2 seed Dallas Empire defeated the regular season number 1 seed Atlanta FaZe 5–1 to become the first Call of Duty League champions.

To start off the 2021 season group selections, the 2020 CDL champions Dallas Empire made the first pick of the teams they want in their group and the runner up at the 2020 CDL championships Atlanta Faze made the 2nd pick.

The season was notable for Atlanta FaZe finishing as runners up in 3 out of the 4 Major tournaments and also finishing as runners up in the Call of Duty Championship Grand Final, being defeated 5-2 by the Los Angeles Thieves who won there first CDL World Championship.