January 21 – Football clubs’ engagement with eSports platforms has taken a deeper dive with 23 teams from around, including Manchester City, Juventus, Inter and AC Milan, partnering with Epic Games – the creator of video game Fortnite – to bring the first-ever official football kit inspired skins to the game.
Epic operates Fortnite, one of the world’s largest games with over 350 million accounts and 2.5 billion friend connections. The football partnership has arisen out a demand from their Fortnite players to bring the world game to their video game.
In addition to new skins for the players of Fortnite to use, football clubs will be able to host their own special Fortnite tournaments with custom jerseys and other rewards.
First on to the platform is a tribute to legendary Brazil icon Pele with a new player-themed emote and tournament.
The Pele Cup is a Fortnite Limited Time Mode (LTM) is being played today (January 20).
“Who better to kick off a global football program than one of the greatest players to ever live?” said Nate Nanzer, head of global partnerships at Epic Games.
“We’re super excited to be able to bring Pele’s famous air punch celebration into the game.
“We also have a really exciting tournament that we’re going to be running where any Fortnite player will be able to sign up and compete to try to win both outfits and the Pele emote early, prior to launch, for free.”
Manchester City are also using their own partnership with FaZe Clan to celebrate global football in Fortnite this week with new emotes, outfits and tournaments within the game
As part of the launch, the club, FaZe Clan and Epic Games will collaborate to hold the FaZe City Cup. FaZe Clan Fortnite players FaZe Mongraal and FaZe Nate Hill are confirmed to play in the tournament tomorrow (January 21).
The open-to-public event will see the top 50 duos pairings (top 100 players) earn early access to the Manchester City skin and special in-game emotes.
Nuria Tarre, Chief Marketing Officer at City Football Group, said: “The FaZe City Cup featuring Fortnite is an exciting first for the club in one of the most popular gaming titles globally and we hope fans worldwide will get involved in the competition and wear their Manchester City outfits in-game with pride.”
Inter Milan are similarly embracing the launch with a special Coppa Inter event to be held on Thursday 21 January. The first Inter-themed Fortnite tournament will also be open to all gamers with the first 100 qualifying for a free Inter emotes.
“This collaboration with Epic Games and Inter’s appearance in Fortnite underlines out club’s commitment to increasing presence in the world of esports,” said Luca Danovaro, Inter’s chief marketing officer.
“The new generations and their interests are of paramount importance to Inter and being a part of Fortnite, the world’s largest video game, is a significant achievement which enables us to further expand Inter’s brand presence around the world.”
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