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The Cyberathlete Amateur League (or CAL, as it is often known as) is a large online competitive video game league that allows players to test their skills in a variety of multiplayer games, usually in the first-person shooter category. CAL is the online variant of the Cyberathelete Professional League, a very popular tournament held on a LAN-based connection.
Structure
CAL's macrostructure is broken down based on the different competitive games it has slated for competition. The most popular CAL game by far is Counter-Strike, a fast-paced tactical first-person shooter based on the Half-Life engine developed by Valve Inc. Other popular games include Day of Defeat (another Half-Life mod), Call of Duty (based on the Quake 3 engine by Id Software), and Warcraft III (developed by Blizzard Entertainment).
Within each game's tier there are different divisions that make up a ladder system. Counter-Strike, the largest tier, has five internal leagues that teams must work their way up. They are CAL-Open, the only division with open registrations, CAL-Intermediate, which allows teams with a 75% winning record from the previous Open season in, CAL-Main, which includes the winners of the previous Open season and high-ranking Intermediate teams, CAL-Premier, which has winners from Intermediate and Main, as well as high-ranking Main teams from previous seasons, and finally, CAL-Invite, the highest rung that has only the best teams that have proven themselves over many seasons.
Each league within each game has three conferences, Atlantic, Central, and Pacific (based on the geographic location of the team), and these conferences are further broken down into different divisions that are randomly chosen at the beginning of each season.
Each division has a head, who is a volunteer that oversees the overall operation of the division. Each league also has a team of admins, capped by one lead head for all of the game. There are also a team of admins who work primarily on cheating disputes made from teams.
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