Last month, it was confirmed that Red Bull was hosting a special Fortnite event hosted by streaming sensation Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, with teams coming together to prove their worth against the competition. Now that the event is concluded, it looks like it’s become a huge success.
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The event, hosted by Blevins and Ben “DrLupo” Lupo, continued to find a huge streaming audience over the course of the evening, with 150,000 viewers tuning in throughout the evening (with the event running all the way through this morning), with at least 100,000 watching concurrently. (That’s not a huge surprise, considering Ninja’s massive following on Twitch.)
The event, which was held on the 99th floor of Chicago’s Willis Tower, brought together 200 of the best Fortnite players around, scoring points on a system that would eventually give the victory to Trevor “Funkbomb” Siegler and Nate “Nateehill” Hill, aka Team Exploit.
“This is our first big tournament and to win it is amazing,” said Nateehill. “We knew we were good and now we just have more confidence, we’re ready for the next one.”
Payouts were somewhat minimal, at just $1,125 each for the top winners, but that was mainly due to the rules applied by Epic Games when it comes to third party competitions. Still, the players were thrilled to take part. You can watch the awarding in the video below, posted by the ESPN Esports Twitter account.
And the #RedBullRiseTillDawn winners are… pic.twitter.com/9xCQtqigLg
— ESPN Esports (@ESPN_Esports) July 22, 2018
On top of that, a secondary challenge, one in which players took on Ninja and Lupo directly, resulted in earning bonus points over the course of the evening. But Ninja explained that it was the interaction with the fans that truly made the evening something special.
“I wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for the Fortnite Community,” said Ninja. “I had so much fun playing with one of my best friends [DrLupo] tonight and meeting all my fans. There was some top talent in this tournament.”
So, with its success and huge audience, could Red Bull be returning to Fortnite territory soon? The company didn’t say anything just yet, but we’ll see what gets announced over the next few months.
Fortnite is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC and mobile devices.
