How Call of Duty League teams earn money without a guarantee

A place in the Call of Duty League has changed hands at the end of August, and the price was not disclosed. That leaves a question many fans, players and would-be owners ask about Activision's professional league: if a slot no longer costs an entry fee, and if the guaranteed payment teams once received has gone, how does a team pay its players and its staff?

The answer has changed twice in three years. In April 2024 Activision rewrote its agreements with the teams: the entry fees went, and a two-year revenue guarantee came in. From the 2026 season, Sheep Esports and The Esports Advocate have reported, that guarantee is no longer paid, and a team's income rests on what it can earn for itself.

This guide sets out each source of that income as the league, the teams and the press have described it: the share of in-game sales, prize money, hosting, sponsors and the team's own business. It also covers the cost side, what the accounts of one listed team show, and how owners have reacted.

Dot Esports on the April 16, 2024 agreements; Sheep Esports, November 30, 2025.

What a Call of Duty League slot is

The Call of Duty League is the professional circuit of Activision's shooter, launched in 2020. It is a franchised league: a closed set of teams, twelve of them, each holding a permanent place, known as a slot, attached to a city. No team is relegated, and no team can climb into the league from below. A new owner enters only by buying a slot from a current one.

Daniel Tsay, the general manager of Call of Duty esports, described it in those terms to Dot Esports in an interview published on July 22, 2026, during the league's championship in Las Vegas. He called it a 12-team closed franchise, said that his dream was 16 teams, and said he did not want to rush expansion before the existing teams were healthy.

The season is played across the year on the current edition of the game: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 for 2026, with the opening weekend on December 5, 2025. Teams play online matches and four Majors, the league's large in-person tournaments, then the championship, which ends the season and crowns its champion.

A team's income does not come from one cheque. It is built from several streams, some paid through the league, some earned by the team on its own. The table below lists them, with what has been made public about each.

From a US$25 million entry fee to none

When the league was created, a slot carried an entry fee. Dot Esports put the buy-in at roughly US$25 million per team, and The Esports Advocate gives the same estimate. By 2024 owners had paid part of it, and the rest was still owed to the league.

That changed on April 16, 2024. Tsay announced restructured team agreements, Dot Esports reported. All outstanding entry fees were eliminated, and the fees teams had already paid were returned in full. The same agreements raised the teams' earnings from their in-game merchandise and from the yearly championship bundle, increased the subsidies paid to teams that host live events, and gave every team a two-year minimum revenue guarantee.

One team owner published its own figures the same day. OverActive Media, the Toronto company that operated the city's franchise, said in a release dated April 16, 2024 that about C$35.1 million (US$25.5 million) of its outstanding entry fees were eliminated, and that it would receive a one-time restructuring payment of C$2.8 million (US$2.0 million) in the second quarter of 2024. Its chief executive, Adam Adamou, spelled it out in one line of the release.

"The agreement eliminates OAM's remaining franchise payments ($35.1 million) to the Call of Duty League."

The OverActive release described what teams received in exchange in general terms: enhanced revenue streams, including direct participation in digital in-game merchandise, and opportunities tied to licensed third-party tournaments. It did not give percentages, and the league has not published the terms of the agreements.

The change had an accounting echo. In its results for 2025, OverActive Media recalled a non-cash gain of C$11.5 million booked in 2024 on the fall in the value of its franchise obligations, after the termination of the league's participation agreement and the forgiveness of its League of Legends franchise fee. A gain of that kind brings no cash: it records that a debt has shrunk.

The guarantee, and how it ended

The guarantee was the cushion of the new model. It ensured that every team received a minimum amount through the league, whatever its own sales, for two years. Dot Esports gave its length when the agreements were announced.

Sheep Esports, an esports business outlet, reported on November 30, 2025 that, starting with the 2026 season, the publisher was removing the guaranteed revenue of league teams, historically set at US$500,000 a year, enough to pay almost a whole roster. It added that the decision had been taken three years earlier: the share paid into a common pool was to move from 50/50 to 75/25, then disappear. The Esports Advocate gave the same account on August 26, 2026, writing that the league has eliminated both its entry fee and its revenue floor.

Under the 2026 model, Sheep Esports wrote, a team receives only a share proportional to its own sales. Early estimates it reported put some clubs at around US$100,000.

The chart below sets the reported amounts side by side. Each one is a figure per team and per year, as Sheep Esports gave it.

Team packs: the share of in-game sales

Under the 2026 model as Sheep Esports described it, the income a team receives through the league comes from the sale of cosmetic items inside the game. Each team has its own pack: skins, the outfits and designs a player buys to change the look of a character or a weapon, in the team's colors. When a fan buys one, the revenue is shared between the publisher and the team.

Sheep Esports gave an order of size. In the first half of 2025, it reported, Activision sold more than 360,000 skins featuring the franchised teams, at US$12 each, for more than US$4.3 million to be divided between the publisher and the teams. Over 2025, the average team sold about 30,000 units, worth about US$135,000 in revenue share, and several teams stayed under US$50,000.

The split itself has not been published. The reported figures show totals spread very unevenly between teams.

Tsay presented the same design as a choice. He told Dot Esports in July 2026 that the league is built so that a team with a large fan base earns well, and that this is what the owners asked for. Dot Esports wrote that a team with a large following can make millions from in-game bundles alone.

Timing matters too. OverActive Media's results for 2025 show it: revenue for the fourth quarter fell from C$9.9 million to C$7.3 million, and the company gave as its reason that the last quarter of 2024 had included unusually high sales of Call of Duty League skins that did not recur.

Prize money at league and outside events

Prize money is the stream fans see on screen. The 2026 championship, played from July 16 to 19 at the Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas, carried a prize pool of US$2 million, according to the release published on February 5, 2026 by ESL FACEIT Group, FaZe Esports and the league. The release did not say how the pool would be divided.

Prize money depends on results: unlike a share of sales, it is earned only by the teams that finish high in an event.

The April 2024 agreements also opened a second door: licensed third-party tournaments, events run by other organizers with the league's permission. The Esports World Cup, held in Paris in the summer of 2026, had a Call of Duty tournament. OverActive Media said that its Toronto team, competing there as Movistar KOI, finished between fifth and eighth. Sheep Esports counted US$120,000 of gross prize money for the company's teams at that event, across three games, Call of Duty among them.

Hosting a Major or the championship

Hosting is a stream that only some teams can use in a given year. The four Majors and the championship are staged either by a team in its own market or by an outside festival. For the 2026 championship, The Esports Advocate reported that FaZe Vegas would serve as host and handle production with support from its sponsors and partners, and the team ran its own ticket presale.

The 2026 calendar shows the mix. The first Major was hosted by OpTic Texas in Dallas, the second and third were part of the DreamHack festivals in Birmingham and Atlanta, from March 27 to 29 and from May 15 to 17, and the fourth was played in the Paris area. The championship was hosted by FaZe Vegas, with ESL FACEIT Group as its production partner, the company that puts the event on stage and on screen. The Las Vegas arena seats between 10,000 and 12,000 people depending on its configuration, The Esports Advocate reported in January.

For the fourth Major, held in Nanterre, near Paris, M80's announcement cites more than 44,000 tickets sold, The Esports Advocate reported. The league subsidizes the teams that host, and the 2024 agreements raised those subsidies, Dot Esports reported, without amounts.

Hosting brings revenue in one year and none in the next. OverActive Media hosted the 2025 championship weekend in Kitchener, Ontario, with more than 11,000 people in attendance and a peak of 353,000 viewers, the company said. In its release of August 27, 2026, it gave the absence of that event as one reason its second-quarter revenue fell to C$5.0 million, from C$8.4 million a year earlier. Adamou named the Kitchener weekend and a League of Legends event in Madrid, and said neither had returned this season.

Sponsors, partners and the team's own business

The rest of a team's income is what it sells itself. Tsay told Dot Esports that the league talks with owners about the ways each wants to monetize, naming team-hosted Majors, sponsorships and in-game bundles.

For most owners, the Call of Duty team is one part of a wider business. OverActive Media divides its activity in two. Team Operations holds the income that comes from fielding teams: according to Sheep Esports, reading the company's filing, the league revenue shares paid by the League of Legends and Call of Duty leagues, payments tied to performance and prize winnings. Business Operations holds the rest: sponsorships, partnerships, agency work, content and live events.

The proportions show the balance. In the second quarter of 2026, Sheep Esports read Team Operations revenue at about C$602,000 for the whole company, down 48 percent on a year earlier, out of C$5.0 million in total revenue. The company's release spoke of a smaller contribution from higher-margin league-share revenue in the quarter.

The broadcast also feeds the sponsor pitch. The league's matches returned to Twitch for the 2026 season, after a 2025 season aired only on YouTube, and Esports Charts, a firm that measures esports viewership, found that Twitch accounted for 44.2 percent of hours watched during the regular season, The Esports Advocate reported. The audience growth figures in M80's announcement differ from those of Esports Charts, and the methods behind each are not published.

The cost side: rosters and salaries

Income is only half of the picture. Sheep Esports reported in November 2025 that a four-player roster can sometimes cost more than US$1 million in salaries, and that some star players earn more than US$400,000 a year. It attributed the rise to competition among clubs to attract star players.

A federal court judgment of 2023, entered in a case brought by the United States Department of Justice, bars Activision from imposing any rule that caps what players in its leagues are paid, directly or indirectly. The league cannot hold payrolls down with a cap or a tax on spending, so each team sets its own.

The floor of player pay has moved as well. Esports Insider wrote on June 5, 2026 that the league had removed its minimum requirement of a US$55,000 annual salary in favor of the wage minimums set by each state. Sheep Esports had written in November 2025 that a player's minimum salary follows the legal minimum of the state concerned. Neither outlet gave the date of the change.

What a listed team's accounts show

OverActive Media is listed on a stock exchange and publishes quarterly accounts, which puts some of the economics of a team on the public record. Its team, which played as Toronto Ultra, was renamed Toronto KOI in 2025, when the company brought its teams under its KOI brand.

The steps below follow the model through that company's own announcements and the press.

The company's releases tie the swings in its revenue to the calendar: unusually high skin sales in the last quarter of 2024 and a home championship in the second quarter of 2025, neither of which recurred a year later.

Owners who stay, sell or lease

With no entry fee to recover and no guarantee to count on, owners have taken different routes. Tsay acknowledged it in his July interview with Dot Esports.

"We have some teams that may want to exit."

Some have sold. On August 26, 2026, M80, a North American esports organization, announced that it had acquired the Boston Breach franchise and would compete as M80 Boston, The Esports Advocate reported. The financial terms were not disclosed. Adam Morrison, who joins M80 as chief commercial officer, told the outlet that the slot was sold by the Oxygen CDL entity.

Some have leased the work rather than the slot. Vancouver Surge is still owned by Canucks Sports and Entertainment, which gave the operating rights for the 2026 season to XDOTG, an esports agency, in a deal announced on November 6, 2025, Esports Insider reported.

Some have shared the work between partners. FaZe Vegas, which hosted the 2026 championship, is run jointly by Atlanta Esports Ventures, which owns the league place, and GameSquare Holdings, the company that owns FaZe Esports, The Esports Advocate reported. The team played as Atlanta FaZe until the end of 2025.

What comes next

The next season begins on a new game. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is set for release on October 23, 2026, and M80 Boston joins the league ahead of it, The Esports Advocate reported.

On the size of the league, Tsay told Dot Esports that the league could expand at any time but would focus on its core teams first. Dot Esports judged an expansion beyond twelve teams for 2027 unlikely, while noting that changes of roster and of organization remain possible around the new game.

The figures that decide a team's income from the league, its share of each sale and the subsidies for hosting, have not been published by Activision or by the league.

The .esports registry publishes Esports Observer, so the whole scene can read its news for free.