Fortnite World Champion Bags $3 Million Prize

Kyle Giersdorf won a record-breaking $3 million prize in the first Fortnite World Cup on Sunday. Giersdorf, a 16-year-old from Pennsylvania, is a professional gamer who will no longer have to worry about student loans or many other of the worldly problems his contemporaries typically struggle with. Having won the solo competition at the tournament that took place in New York, Giersdorf is now a rich man, or boy for that matter.

In total Epic Games had set aside $40 million in prize money for the Fortnite World Cup, of which $10 million was awarded over 10 weeks during the qualifying stage and $30 million were reserved for the players who qualified for the New York City final. The $3 million prize for the solo winner was certain to make some headlines, as it makes the winners’ purses in some of the biggest individual sporting events in the world look like small change in comparison.

As the following chart illustrates, you could win the Tour de France, the Hawaii Ironman, the New York Marathon and the Masters Tournament in Augusta and still walk (or limp) away a poorer person than the world’s best Fortnite player. The tournament is part of Epic Games’ campaign of making Fortnite the most lucrative game in esports. Last year, the company pledged to put up $100 million in prize money for Fortnite events through the end of 2019.