I was a bit surprised when I got the call from Activision last week wanting to discuss Call of Duty’s first appearance at Fanatics Fest. The event is already hotbed of sports culture, and I knew organizers have ambitions for it to break out of its sports confines and become a bigger cultural event celebrating fandom of all stripes.
But I didn’t expect Activision to use Fanatics Fest as a pseudo-replacement for events such as the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in the U.S. Activision CMO Tyler Bahl told me that the hands-on fan experience of playing the game is something that’s been missing in its U.S. events following the COVID pandemic and the 2021 demise of the Electronic Entertainment Expo and surrounding publisher events.
“Even in the events we’ve done [since 2020], we haven’t actually done hands-on, and that’s something we’ve been missing,” Bahl said, noting that while using streamers to show new games is something Activision will continue to do, “putting the game and showing the proof in the hands of regular people” was an important missing component to Call of Duty rollouts.
Call of Duty has long been a fixture during sports programming — the ads run during games from the various leagues in the U.S. and elsewhere. For years, athletes have noted how much they play in their off-hours, in locker rooms and while traveling (Kyler Murray jokes aside, though he later turned this into a sponsorship deal), and even stream it.
“This event has more than 150,000 people in New York City on such an amazing weekend, where you have the World Cup championship. You got Yankees-Dodgers. You got Jay-Z at Yankee Stadium. There’s a lot going on, and we just wanted to be part of that moment,” Bahl said.
A variety of New York sports stars are showing up at Call of Duty’s booth to play Modern Warfare 4, but I also asked Bahl if any MLS players from the World Cup would be there. Because most of them aren’t in Sunday’s final, Activision wasn’t able to get any there, but one of the company’s “big pushes” is to link up with athletes where it makes sense for appearances and events.
Considering that Modern Warfare 4’s story involves a conflict between the U.S. and North Korea, with one part of the game starting on domestic shores and another in South Korea, I asked Bahl if any of MLB’s Korean players, such as RF Jung Hoo Lee of the Giants, or Kpop stars like BTS would take part in future Call of Duty promotions.
“We have a number of activations that are coming later this year where we are going to include a number of Korean celebrities in different ways,” Bahl said, noting there’s “definitely potential” for players such as Lee to show up down the line.
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Two other nuggets from my chat with Bahl
On real-world sports inspirations
Kill Block is the first Call of Duty multiplayer map with dynamic features, including elements that move and transform. Bahl said part of the inspiration for this came from Real Madrid’s home stadium, Bernabéu, which uses a hydraulic system to raise and lower the pitch, with a surface suitable for concerts, conventions and the like taking its place.
“It also has a greenhouse under the stadium to protect the grass and stuff,” Bahl said, noting the fascination this system held for the developers and designers at Infinity Ward, the Activision studio making this year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. “One of the new innovations from Infinity Ward is this new map that dynamically changes. It’s literally on risers, and every time you go into a match or a round, it’ll dynamically change. There can be hundreds of different combinations. So we’re going to celebrate it.”
On working with Aston Martin
Here’s another sports-culture crossover for Call of Duty. Aston Martin is an F1 fixture, and athletes (and James Bond) have long driven the luxury sports cars. The Dreadnought is a full-sized SUV, a model Aston Martin doesn’t produce. But the car manufacturer made this concept for Call of Duty, which Aston Martin’s designers worked on with Infinity Ward, into a full-sized piece on display at Fanatics Fest.
“We’ve done a lot with F1 over the years. We did activations with Alpine. We worked with Lando Norris. And so, while this is separate from the F1 team, just working with that team at Aston Martin and really thinking about how we can bring this car to the game … we’re really excited to debut that there,” Bahl said.
It incorporates design tweaks from a standard SUV that make it more suitable for Call of Duty combat, such as grenade holders, not cup holders, in the doors and passenger compartment.
“You can actually put assault rifles inside of the door,” Bahl said.
The Dreadnought will debut in Modern Warfare’s Season 1 in November-December. It’ll also appear in the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone.
Why sports?
Call of Duty is facing a different environment than it was even just five years ago. Since Microsoft’s 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Call of Duty is now appearing on Xbox Game Pass. Last year, that meant players could play Black Ops 7 without buying it. A reinvigorated Battlefield 6 in 2025 also carved into the series’ long dominance of the shooter market. It also met with mixed reviews and review bombs from disgruntled players.
Microsoft is reversing some of those miscues for 2026, with Modern Warfare 4 not appearing on Game Pass at launch, opting for the standard purchase model as it rolls out on Xbox, PlayStation and the Switch 2 on Oct. 23 (and PC, of course). It’ll appear next fall on Game Pass.
So it makes sense for Call of Duty to look to athletes and sports to boost the series, especially in a social media environment in which so many streamers competing for eyeballs can make it hard for even Call of Duty to break through these days.
Let’s see how this plans works out ... the same year Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming out.
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