2010–2019: Formation and early growth FaZe Sniping made their debut on
YouTube on May 30, 2010. Originally, the group was a
Call of Duty clan founded by three players, Eric "CLipZ" Rivera, Jeff "House Cat" Emann (now known as "Timid") and Ben "Resistance" Christensen. The trio garnered a reputation for innovating trickshotting in the game
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Their YouTube content took off when Ted "Fakie" joined the clan. It was then that FaZe unveiled the most popular series on their channel,
ILLCAMS. FaZe Clan's focus on trickshotting and a personality-driven approach to social media led to it becoming one of the first popular YouTube video game channels, compared to other
Call of Duty channels that often focused on winning tournaments. In 2015, former social media platform Hubrick, run by Norwegian entrepreneur Sebastian Geurts, invested in FaZe Clan. who competed as FaZe Clan in the 2016
MLG Major Championship: Columbus. The team won second place in
ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, losing to US-based
Cloud9. In 2017, Bengtson moved to
Los Angeles, starting a new shared home with YouTubers called the Clout House. second runner ups in
ESL Pro League Season 7 and
ESL One Cologne 2018, and were the champions of
ELeague CS:GO Premier that same year, winning $500,000 of prize money. In 2018,
Greg Selkoe, founder of streetwear web retailer
Karmaloop, became the president of FaZe Clan, with Trink becoming the CEO. In December 2019, FaZe closed their series A led by entrepreneur
Jimmy Iovine and mobile e-commerce platform NTWRK.
2020–2024: Public listing and organizational changes In January 2020, FaZe Clan obtained a $22.7 million investment loan from a private lender. FaZe was advised on the transaction by
Canaccord Genuity, a Canadian financial company. On June 18, 2020, FaZe Clan announced their co-ownership of CTRL, a
food supplement company. In December, FaZe Clan was worth $305 million and their monthly revenue was estimated to be $40 million. In 2020, Faze Studios released the film
Crimson, with
Brian "Rug" Awadis in a leading role. On June 10, 2021, FaZe Clan became the first esports team to be featured on the cover of
Sports Illustrated. The same year, a merger was announced with special purpose acquisition investors B. Riley Principal to become a
public company listed on
NASDAQ, with an expected initial valuation of around . As part of this merge, FaZe would receive from B. Riley, and would be renamed to Faze Holdings Inc. and refocus themselves as a brand for "the voice of youth culture". The merger was approved by the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the company went public on July 20, 2022, however with a lower than announced valuation of $725 million. That same year, in 2021, FaZe Clan member Frazier Khattrri (FaZe Kay) became one of the lead promoters of
Save the Kids token, a
pump and dump cryptocurrency which was additionally promoted by FaZe members Jarvis, Teeqo and Nikan. Upon the token's launch and revelation to the public that it was a pump and dump, FaZe removed Kay and suspended Jarvis, Teeqo, and Nikan for their involvement. Teeqo was later found to be unaware of and uninvolved in the pump and dump, and was reinstated. In July 2022, FaZe Clan became a
publicly traded company. The company had only received a portion of the they were promised by private investors ahead of their merge with B. Riley Principal 150 Merger Group. On January 20, 2023, the price of their stock fell below one dollar for the first time, which put them at risk of being delisted. On February 15, 2023, the stock was at $0.76. In March 2023, it was reported that the company received a notice of delisting, which gave them 180 days to raise the stock price above one dollar. Trink, the CEO, had expressed concerns and had stated that the company is working towards a solution to their problem. As of September 2022, it was reported that the organization had enough money to last them until November 2023. FaZe Clan reported losses of approximately $14 million in the first two quarters of 2023, with slightly decreased revenues. In April 2023,
Snoop Dogg departed from FaZe Clan's board. On September 11, 2023, FaZe Clan announced the immediate termination of Trink from his position as CEO. The company appointed Christoph Pachler, the CEO and
CFO of FaZe Clan, as the interim CEO. In October, it was announced that FaZe Clan had been acquired by GameSquare Holdings Inc., and subsequently added to the GameSquare esports portfolio. With this acquisition, Bengtson, Oliveira, and Yousef Abdelfattah (FaZe Apex) were appointed as CEO, president, and
COO respectively. On April 27, 2024, Bengtson kicked out members of FaZe Clan, reducing the content creator roster to fourteen members in an effort to "reboot" the organization. On May 6, the
Esports World Cup Foundation, funded by the
Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund and organizers of the
Esports World Cup tournament series, announced the 30 organizations (known in the ESWC as Clubs) that would make up the Club Support Program, with FaZe Clan being one of them. This program gives teams a one-time six-figure stipend if an organization is willing to enter new esports as well as additional funding each year if they drive viewership and fan engagement to the Esports World Cup.
2024–2026: Reboot, FaZe Media foundation, and closure On May 14, GameSquare CEO Justin Kenna announced the formation of FaZe Media (FaZe Media, Inc. and FaZe Media Holdings, LLC), led by Richard "FaZe Banks" Bengtson as CEO. This formation spins off FaZe Holdings into an
esports company, and an
internet media company, named FaZe Media. FaZe Media received $11 million in investment from Matt Kalish, the president and co-founder of
DraftKings, resulting in Kalish owning 49% of FaZe Media during their foundation. FaZe Media will focus on developing a creator-led internet media company with GameSquare continuing to own 100% of the esports competition assets under FaZe Esports (incorporated as FaZe Clan, Inc.). On June 19, Richard "FaZe Banks" Bengtson acquired 25.5% in FaZe Media from GameSquare. In December, FaZe was nominated for Best Marathon Stream and won Best Content Organization at
The Streamer Awards. At the time, their new streamer roster included JasonTheWeen, Adapt,
PlaqueBoyMax, Banks, Silky, Lacy, and
Stable Ronaldo. On March 31, 2025, GameSquare announced the
divestiture of their remaining 25.5% stake in FaZe Media. The company retains full ownership of FaZe Esports. On July 28, Bengtson stepped down from his role as CEO following accusations of scamming fans through the
meme coin MLG. On December 25, Adapt, JasonTheWeen, Lacy, Silky, and StableRonaldo announced their departure from FaZe Clan on
X, with Apex, Swagg, YourRAGE, Kaysan, and Rug announcing their departures in the following days though Kaysan will continue to be involved with FaZe Esports.
Bloomberg reported that Kalish gave FaZe creators an ultimatum to join HardScope, his then-newly launched creator agency, or go independent, believing it was necessary as he believed the FaZe Media business model was "unsustainable". In addition, some reports claimed that HardScope required creators to pay 20% of their overall revenue to it to continue using the FaZe brand. On the same day, FaZe Clan announced the closure of FaZe Media, effectively leaving FaZe Esports as the only operating entity of the FaZe brand.
2026–present: FaZe return speculations, and CORE On April 30, 2026, several content creators formerly in FaZe formed the replacement content group named CORE (an acronym for “Create, Own, Run, Everything”), following their departure from FaZe Clan in late 2025 amid internal disputes regarding contracts and ownership of the organization. The group consisted of
Stable Ronaldo, Adapt,
Marlon, Lacy, JasonTheWeen, Silky, and Lacy. The YouTube channel hosting their announcement video was terminated after gaining over 100,000 subscribers in the first several hours of launch, due to "automated security flags" disabling the connected Google account, but it was quickly restored. Their announcement was concurrent to FaZe Banks' first livestream, which implied a potential FaZe Clan re-launch. == Divisions ==