Fortnite World Cup Shows Some Cracks in Battle Royale Business
Nothing lasts forever

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• less than 3 min read
The first-ever Fortnite World Cup sold out NYC's 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium (which also hosts the U.S. Open) this weekend. Imagine a tennis tournament—but replace two 30-year olds furiously pounding yellow balls with 100 16-year-olds furiously pounding keyboards.
Some numbers to make you question higher education over joystick skills...
- $30 million in prize money was distributed, with $3 million going to each winner of the solo and duo competitions. When Tiger Woods won the Masters in the spring, he took home $2 million.
- 40 million players participated in online qualifiers, with $50,000 guaranteed for every qualifier.
But...viewership is in quicksand. A much-hyped monster fight on Saturday didn’t even make it into the top 10 most-watched Fortnite events by Twitch viewership. The 2018 Celebrity Pro-Am is No. 1 on that list with 1.5 million concurrent viewers. This year, viewership of that matchup tanked 73% when it kicked off the World Cup on Friday.
Bottom line: Nothing lasts forever, including Fortnite’s mega-popularity. But the battle royale game has still turned its publisher, Epic Games, into an industry juggernaut.
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