The OG FaZe era
The first era of FaZe where FaZe clan was founded. Starting out as a call of duty trickshotting group, and on its way to become one of the biggest
gaming organizations of the world.
FaZe was founded in may 2010 by three players that go by the names FaZe CLipZ, FaZe House Cat (also known as Timid) and FaZe Resistance.
These three were the original innovators of trickshotting in Call of Duty.
May 2010 also saw the first YouTube video by FaZe. June 2010, the ILLCAMS series is launched,
this went on to become the most popular series of the channel. Because of the trickshotting and personality driven content of FaZe clan, the youtube channel became the most
popular Call of Duty channel on YouTube, mainly because other channels mostly had their focus on winning tournaments.
In 2012 the channel reached one million subscribers and the clan started its branching out to esports. Teams separate from the content creators began to compete in games
under the name FaZe in competitions like the Call of Duty Championship and the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships.
The original CEO, Thomas 'Temperrr' Oliveira, who had been a member since he was 16 and COO Richard 'Banks' Bengtson
created the first shared FaZe house in 2014 in Plainview, New York. This is where the next era of FaZe kicked off, the FaZe house era.
The FaZe house era
2014 kicked off the FaZe house era with Rain, Temperr, Apex and Banks becoming Co-Owners of FaZe, formalizing the ownership of FaZe. The first FaZe house was founded
after getting GFuel as a sponsor for the house, in Plainview, New York. June 2015, former social media network Hubrick invests in FaZe and Lee Trink becomes the new CEO
which brings professional business leadership to FaZe.
In 2016 FaZe enters CS:GO esports by acquiring the internation lineup of the European esports team G2.
This marked their expansion into CS:GO and strengthening their competitive presence in the esports scene. Later that same year FaZe went on to win the CS:GO ELEAGUE season 2
which was a big competitive milestone, really putting FaZe on the map. In 2017 FaZe's YouTube channel reached the massive 5 million subscribers, cementing their status
as one of the largest esports organizations in the world. The same year the clout house is created, becoming a house for collaborative content creating in Los Angeles.
In September, Greg Selkoe becomes president of FaZe with Lee Trink continuing as CEO.
2018 saw the rize of Fortnite, and fortnite streamer and icon Tfue joined FaZe,
bringing a ton of viewers and popularity to FaZe. FaZe also won the IEM Sydney 2018, a major CS:GO tournament. Steelseries also announced their partnership with FaZe,
and the first round of funding is opened, attracting investments from celebrities and other high profile figures. This really marked FaZe's expansion into mainstream entertainment.
FaZe continued with partnerships and collaborations in 2019, bringing out the RTFK AR sneakers at E3 2019, and bringing out several clothing lines with clothing brand collaborations.
July 2019, FaZe competes in the Fortnite world cup, with FaZe Megga becoming 5th in duos alongside Dubs, showing FaZe's dominance in the esports scene.
The new FaZe era
The new FaZe era starts off with a 22.7 million investment loan with the Canadian company Canaccord Genuity, strengthening their financial position in 2020.
March 2020, GFuel and FaZe expand their partnership and bring out a new hydration line FaZeberry and launching the GFuel studio in the new FaZe Clan house.
Their partnership also included several signature flavors, marking deep integration into FaZe content.
Later that same year FaZe became co-owner of CTRL, expanding their portfolio beyond gaming and content creation. FaZe then partnered up with film producer Michael Sugar,
and launched FaZe studios, specializing in scripted TV series and feature films. Their first film "Crimson" was released in October 2020. In October FaZe also secured
40 million in investment funding, becoming more corporately structured and expanding into business. 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 initial valuation of 1 billion dollars. Later that year after being approved
they joined the market under the new name FaZe Holdings Inc. but with a lower than expected valuation of 725 million dollars.
In 2021 FaZe members Kay became on of the lead promoters of save the kids tokens, a pump and dump cryptocurrency, which was additionally promoted by FaZe Jarvis, Teeqo and Nikan.
Upon discovering that it was a pump and dump FaZe Kay was removed, and Jarvis, Teeqo and Nikan were suspended for their involvement. Teeqo was later found to be unaware of it being a pump and dump.
In 2022 FaZe became a publicly traded company, but only received a part of the promised 291 million dollars by B. Riley Principal 150 merger group.
The same year FaZe won the IEM Katowice 2022 and later won the PGL Major Antwerp 2022, which was the first time FaZe won the pinnacle of CS:GO championships.
Ghost energy replaced GFuel with a multiyear deal creating new FaZe themed energy drinks. They also had several other noteworthy partnerships including a multiyear partnership
with Porsche and a Nike Lebron collaboration.
In 2023 FaZe's stock price became lower than 1 dollar, which put them at risk of being delisted. FaZe laid of a lot of staff and
was later that year acquired by Gamesquare Holdings Inc. where FaZe members Banks, Temperrr and Apex became CEO, President and COO respectively.
In April 2024, Banks kicked out members of FaZe clan to try to "reboot" FaZe. In May 2024, FaZe Media was announced, led by Banks.
This decision split up FaZe Holdings as an esports company, and FaZe Media as a internet media company.
FaZe media, with newly acquired content creators won the Best Content Organization and the Best Marathon awards at The Streamer Awards.
In December 2025 however, most of the content creators announced their departure of FaZe media. This was reportedly due to being forced into the ultimatum of joining HardScope, the creator agency
of the main investor, or leaving. This was because the investor (Kalish who had 49% ownership of FaZe media) believed that FaZe media's business model was unsustainable. FaZe clan
then announced the closure of FaZe Media, leaving FaZe Esports as the only operating branch of FaZe.