Epic Games, developer and publisher of the Fortnite game franchise, has appointed the IMG agency to produce and distribute the first Fortnite World Cup esports competition.
IMG will manage production and rights distribution for the event, which makes its debut at the Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium in New York on July 26-28.
All content will be delivered via a digitally encoded stream from IMG Studios in the UK. IMG’s in-flight sports channel, Sport 24 Extra, will be showing the Fortnite World Cup live on international flights on select airlines.
The Fortnite World Cup Finals will be the culmination of 10 weeks of global online qualification rounds.
The event, which is being organised by IMG’s parent company Endeavor, has a record-breaking esports prize pool, with $10m (€8.9m) of prize money being distributed during qualification rounds, $30m being handed out at the Fortnite World Cup Finals in New York as well as a further $3m available for the Fortnite World Cup Creative Mode.