International tournament organizer ESL FACEIT Group (EFG), GameSquare-owned FaZe Esports, and Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty League (CDL) announced official event details for the 2026 Call of Duty League Championship on Thursday.
According to Thursday’s announcement, teams in the CDL will converge on Vegas in a four-day tournament to determine this season’s champion and take home the lion’s share of the $2 million USD total prize pool.
Tickets are on sale now, with ticket registration and event information available to the public at www.axs.com.
For the first time, EFG will collaborate with CDL and FaZe Esports to produce the season-end championship.
The 2026 CDL Championship is set to take place July 16 – 19, at the Michelob ULTRA Arena Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas and will be hosted by FaZe Vegas, the CDL franchise of Atlanta Esports Ventures and GameSquare Holdings’ FaZe Esports.
EFG’s inclusion as a partner isn’t surprising, as the company is already working with CDL on the CDL Major II, which will take place at DreamHack Birmingham in March. Also former Esports Engine Co-Founder, MLG executive, and Activision Blizzard esports executive Adam Apicella now working for EFG probably had some influence on this new collaboration.
EFG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Savvy Games Group, which is in turn owned by the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF). EFG is home to Esports Engine, ESL, FACEIT, and DreamHack.
Projects backed by the Saudi government are often accused of being used for “sports washing,” or as a cover for the government to gloss over its record on human rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, its mistreatment (and executions of) journalists, military actions in Yemen, and more. These and other criticisms have been highlighted by international watchdog groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.