Street battle in Call of Duty: Black Ops -- Cold War.
Street battle in Call of Duty: Black Ops -- Cold War.
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L.A. Thieves’ Kenny Williams on living the dream life as a pro Call of Duty esports player

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 8 min

The Call of Duty League started its opening matches Thursday, and they run through this weekend so that you can watch a lot of havoc on Valentine’s Day.

The new league will run its full season through the summer as an online-only esports league. The league features 12 teams in city-based territories, including the brand new L.A. Thieves team taking over the berth from The Immortals. I spoke with Kenny “Kenny” Williams, who joined the L.A. Thieves team after playing for Optic Gaming Los Angeles last year.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.