‘Fortnite’ fills U.S. Open stadium
Kyle Giersdorf, who goes by the name “Bugha,” celebrates as he holds up the trophy after winning the Fortnite World Cup solo finals in New York, earning $3 million as the first Fortnite World Cup solo champion.
For the first Fortnite World Cup, Epic Games, the publisher, struck a deal to take over the tennis center for three days. It was the last possible weekend to do so before the U.S. Open buildout begins in earnest.
“If I was sane, that last weekend probably would have been about 30 days ago,” Daniel Zausner, the chief operating officer of the tennis center, said.
With a limited window to host events in nice weather that do not interfere with the Open, Zausner said, the Fortnite World Cup was attractive because of its young audience. “This
just breaks down a barrier for people that are not that familiar with tennis or not that familiar with the venue,” he said.
A multitiered stage weighing almost a quartermillion pounds hung from hundreds of cables fastened to the roof of the stadium. Racks upon racks of servers were assembled in the commissary, connected to hundreds of computers and video cameras by 25 miles of fiber-optic cable. More than 60 tractor-trailers of equipment were unloaded, including one filled mostly with gaming chairs.
One hundred screens featured the views of 100 cameras, letting the audience in the far reaches of the stadium watch the competitors. Giant 4K LED screens showed in-game action, and smoke machines, spotlights and confetti went off after matches. The sound of virtual battle was so deafening that ear plugs were included with media credentials.
“That will make everything better,” one mother said while buying a cocktail during Friday night’s celebrity pro-am event. “I can’t take it in there anymore.” On the other end of the spectrum, one family of three wore T-shirts that read, “We’re Not a Regular Family, We’re a Fortnite Family.”
“Fortnite’s” aesthetic is silly, there is no blood or gore and characters do comical dances. But the World Cup is deadly serious. Forty million players participated in online qualifiers, and Epic Games gave out $30 million in prize money Sunday, including $3 million to the winners — Kyle Giersdorf, of Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, in the solo competition and David Wang, of Austria, and 16-year-old Emil Pedersen, of Norway, in the duo competition.
The biggest esports tournaments are typically held in NBA arenas, but Epic Games prized the tennis center because its acres of grounds could support an immersive “Fortnite” festival that felt quite different from the typical “sponsor activations” seen at sporting events.