British Army Esports wins their first Call of Duty Endowment trophy

30 June 2026

About two years ago, we were one of the first UK esports outlets to report on Activision Blizzard signing the UK Armed Forces Covenant. That represented a formal commitment of the California-based developer’s charity arm, the Call of Duty Endowment, to the UK Armed Forces as part of its efforts to raise money and awareness for veteran employment.
That was not the only result of the collaboration between Activision and the UK Armed Forces, though. It also added the British men and women to the list of annual Code Bowl competitors. In this context, “Code” stands for “Call of Duty Endowment” and recently, it was time for Code Bowl VII. And guess what? In its second full year as member of Activision’s charity arm, the UK Armed Forces won their first-ever Code Bowl trophy!

Code Bowl VII

The Call of Duty Endowment was brought into life by Activision Blizzard back in 2009, with the goal of helping veterans into civilian jobs. The annual Code Bowl, which exists since 2020, is one of the organisation’s major annual fundraising and awareness events. This year, it took place towards of June and featured squads representing the Army, Navy and Air Force from the UK, US and Canada. Early rounds consisted of Warzone matches between the military teams, while later matches featured content creators.
The British Army Esports team eventually came out on top, winning the coveted Call of Duty Endowment Code Bowl VII trophy by beating the US Navy Esports team in the final. The US Air Force Esports team finished in third place. As for the other British teams in contention, the Royal Air Force (RAF) took sixth place, while the Royal Navy finished one spot lower in seventh place.

First-time glory for British Army

Their recent success at the Code Bowl meant that the British Army could take home the first Code Bowl in their history. As a matter of fact, they are only the second team from the UK Armed Forces won the whole thing. The only other team to manage that feat is the Royal Air Force, who won the trophy twice, in 2022 and 2025. As it stands, they are the only team to ever achieve more than one Code Bowl victory. An overview of all the winners:

Individual awards

As we wrote before, the goal of the Code Bowl is to raise funds and attention for veteran transition programmes. That does not mean that the competition between teams is not serious though, on the contrary. The participating rosters are highly competitive, because they all want to be the best and they all want to show what they can do.
That is also why Activision gives out individual awards during the tournament. This year, for example, the Monster Energy MVP ring was won by British Army Esports team member Gibbo, while American-born Tyler “TeeP” Polchow, former member of OpTic Esports, won the Solo Yolo free-for-all event.