This year’s edition of Fanatics Fest was more gamer-friendly than ever.
Fanatics Fest 2026 marked the sports merchandise and collectibles platform Fanatics’ third and largest-ever annual convention, bringing roughly 200,000 attendees into New York City’s Javits Center for four days of panels, booths, and networking for people in the sports and collectibles space. Fanatics Fest 2026 was timed to coincide with the FIFA World Cup final, and FIFA showed up with a dedicated gaming lounge allowing attendees to compete in soccer-themed titles like FIFA Heroes, FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition, and Rocket League.
FIFA was not the only presenter to inject gaming into the proceedings at Fanatics Fest. Next door to FIFA’s booth, Activision and Infinity Ward showed up with a large activation promoting the upcoming release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, replete with an Aston Martin concept car taken from the game, gameplay demo setups, visits by athletes and celebrities, and a night vision experience. GamesBeat dropped by the Modern Warfare 4 booth on the second and third days of Fanatics Fest — and both days, the line to participate in the demo sessions stretched far out the door. Activision’s Modern Warfare 4 booth was Fanatics Fest’s first-ever dedicated gaming booth, and the only dedicated gaming booth on the event’s show floor in 2026.
“All the athletes and stars and whoever comes and associated with Fanatics Fest — they’re all fans of the game. After they’re done with their Hall of Fame runs and their seasons, they’re at home playing Call of Duty,” said Infinity Ward co-studio-head Mark Grigsby during a press briefing last week. “So, it’s only right that we are coming out this year; we need to be here at Fanatics Fest as well.”
In addition to promoting Modern Warfare 4, showing up at Fanatics Fest allowed the game’s development team to collect crucial feedback from rank-and-file players ahead of Modern Warfare 4’s global release on October 23. During the demo sessions, for example, one player discovered a bug with the game’s smoke grenades, which the Infinity Ward team was able to fix immediately, pushing a new build of the game live for the rest of the session.
“I stood in line yesterday, and I was asking everybody sitting in line, ‘what do you play? What are you interested in? What do you want us to change?’” said Activision chief marketing officer Tyler Bahl in an interview with GamesBeat. “We have to show and to prove it, but we are changing based on the feedback that we’re getting, and we want to make sure that we have player choice.”
Activision’s expanded presence at Fanatics Fest 2026 created new marketing opportunities for some of the company’s brand partners as well. In addition to the aforementioned Aston Martin activation, the company also hosted a Modern-Warfare-4-themed all-terrain vehicle experience alongside Polaris just outside the Javits Center.
For now, Modern Warfare 4’s presence at non-gaming events like Fanatics Fest remains a “test,” according to Bahl, who said Activision planned to collect data points like booth foot traffic to determine how much the company would lean into future events.
“We wanted to see how fans responded to it,” he said. “Clearly, they’re loving the gameplay and getting their hands on it.”
Regardless of Activision and other game makers’ specific plans, the cultural impact of gaming within the broader sports space is growing, as shown by the increased presence of gaming at both Fanatics Fest 2026 and throughout the FIFA World Cup. In addition to top-level athletes like Kevin Durant and Jalen Brunson, Fanatics Fest brought in a Who’s Who of prominent gaming creators and influencers, from Jason “Jasontheween” Nguyen to Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins.
“If you draw a Venn diagram of sports and Call of Duty, they’d literally be on top of each other,” Bahl said. “Usually, gamers only buy one or two games a year — it’s Call of Duty and a sports title, depending on where they are. This is the connection.”