Activision wants Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 to be your new passion. The first big step in this regard will be a convention of sports fans and the participation of Whiplash star Inde Navarrette.
Fanatics Fest 2026, which takes place at the Javits Center in New York City this weekend, will draw 150,000 attendees from Thursday to its final day on Sunday. During this time, sports from Formula 1 to FIFA and the NBA will be showcased through panels, events and athlete meet-and-greets. Alongside these top brands will be the Xbox-released “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4,” the world’s first video game, to headline Fanatics Fest.
While CoD players might not be the first group you’d think of attending a sports fan convention (with all due respect to the mainstream esports industry), Activision CMO Tyler Bahl says there’s a clear logic to the choice.
“It all started with the realization that a lot of people who buy our game typically buy one or two games a year; us and maybe a sports game,” says Bahl. Diversity. “And the overlap between us and sports is very strong. It’s always been there. We see players screaming about us in interviews, on podcasts. We see them talking about communication. When they play together, it really helps their communication on the field. We’ve seen it with the Chiefs. We’ve heard it with the Knicks players.”
After two straight years of Black Ops releases, Bahl and the team at Activision wanted to approach marketing this year’s new Call of Duty title, Xbox Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare, differently, by getting as many fans as possible to demo the game before its October 23 release.
“We thought that one thing we really wanted to do differently this year was that we didn’t put the game in people’s hands before it came out,” says Bahl. “We have betas and things like that. But I think going back to the days of going to events and having experiences and letting people play – we knew we wanted to do this.”
Because “the Venn diagram is so strong” between “Call of Duty” gamers and sports fans, Bahl and co. thought of Fanatics Fest as an option that would give them easy access to thousands of players. But Activision’s chief marketing officer says even the event organizers didn’t expect what the “Modern Warfare 4” team had in mind.
“I don’t think they thought we would be this successful,” Bal says. “I remember the first conversation and I think they thought we’d just have a little stand somewhere and maybe someone would play video games. But I think in a lot of ways we made it very clear that we wanted to be there and really have a presence. It’s F1, FIFA and us when you walk in.”
For “CoD,” the “big” Fanatics Fest includes performances from Aston Martin and Polaris, matches between Knicks, Yankees and WWE stars, tons of merch, and a live panel featuring Bala, NBA star and “Call of Duty” actor Kevin Durant, Infinity Ward director Mark Grigsby and “Whiplash” star Inde Navarrette.
Yes, Navarrette, who was invited to join Saturday’s discussion about “Call of Duty’s” impact on pop culture because the actress is an avid “Call of Duty” player who has been streaming her gameplay for years.
“We just want to celebrate her and the amazing success of Whiplash and see her explode,” says Bahl. “We’ve been following her, we’ve seen her streams and she’s very competitive. It was interesting for me to watch when we made the announcement, you look in the comments and some people might not know that she was a CoD streamer and all her fans are coming out and defending her and saying, ‘She’s the real deal.’ Go back and watch the streams. She was very competitive.”
That’s not to say that an official partnership or project between Navarretta and the CoD franchise is “off the table,” according to Bahl, but the event is aimed at getting the star to “come back and join the Call of Duty community, given that’s how she started.”
“My older brother started playing CoD when I was seven or eight years old, I think,” Navarrette says. Diversity in an email interview. “He introduced me to Modern Warfare 2.” We played in Local Party and played duets with each other. My favorite map was RUST, where the main was SCARS and the secondary was TAMPER… He usually won.”
Navarrette adds: “For me, ‘Call of Duty’ completely takes over my mind. There are so many moving parts that you have to keep turning your head. It almost turns my brain off in a way and I don’t think about anything else. It’s also such a nostalgic part of my childhood that I love going back to.”
In addition to making connections between sports, pop culture and “CoD,” Activision’s mission this weekend is to capitalize on the Fanatics Fest New York location – the setting of “Modern Warfare 4.” Bahl wants to emphasize how much New York culture, including the music of the Wu-Tang Clan, will be included in the game, which is primarily about the war that’s brewing between North and South Korea.
“This game has two stories: one is a South Korean and a North Korean story, and the other is our iconic characters from Task Force 141. And (Modern War character Captain John) Price starts the whole story in New York, he’s in a nightclub and on the run, but he’s also chasing (War villain Vladimir) Makarov,” says Bahl. (Don’t worry, he’s not revealing anything ahead of Saturday’s Modern Warfare 4 panel, which was revealed in previously released footage.)
“So to see that scene in our trailer in New York with so much going on was really a happy accident,” says Bahl. “You’ve got the World Cup finals. You’ve got the Knicks winning the championship. We’ve got the Yankees-Dodgers. We’ve got Jay-Z playing at Yankee Stadium. You’ve got Price in New York in (Modern Warfare 4). I think all those connections – you have the Wu-Tang connection and all that – it just made sense to us.”
It’s a bold new strategy for the “Call of Duty” franchise, which has seen slow sales over the last few years but appears to have found new energy leading up to the release of “Modern Warfare 4” and amid the hype surrounding Taylor Sheridan’s “Call of Duty” movie. Bahl remains tight-lipped about any news regarding this Paramount Pictures project, directed by Peter Berg, that may be revealed this weekend.
“Maybe there will be a small announcement or association with the film,” says Bahl. “Well, this is a big announcement for us. I think the fans will be very excited. But I think we’ll hold off until Saturday.”
When asked if she was interested in being part of a CoD movie, Navarrette responded, “I’m really excited to see what direction they decide to go. Moreover, the game already has so many stories related to the campaign. I would definitely join as a computer voice!”