SBJ Power Up: Topgolf tees off in Fortnite

Today's Power Up looks at Topgolf taking its games to Fortnite in a piece from my SBJ colleague Jason Wilson. I'm not a golfer myself, but I always found Topgolf to be a fun experience. It's an interesting idea to bring the brand to a video game, especially one with the popularity of Fortnite. -- Mike Boylan

In today's edition of Power Up:

Topgolf tees off in Fortnite
Fastbreak.ai acquires Tourney Pro
Sphere steals the show

Topgolf tees off in Fortnite as part of Creative program

By Jason Wilson

The map, as part of the Fortnite Creative program, is available now on all Fortnite platforms (console, mobile and PC) from Zoned -- an agency under the GameSquare Holdings banner Topgolf

Topgolfis now in Fortnite with a map that offers adaptations of its games from its driving range venues. The map, as part of the Fortnite Creative program, is available now on all Fortnite platforms (console, mobile and PC) from Zoned (an agency under the GameSquare Holdings banner) in a deal with Topgolf. Moonlight Studios, a subsidiary of Zoned, built the map for Zoned. No other agencies played a role in this arrangement.

Bringing Topgolf to Fortnite started from a simple premise: “Make someone’s first swing at Topgolf,” said Zoned President Carlos Tovar.

“We’ve been working behind the scenes with gamers and gaming companies for a few years now, and this was a culmination of relationship-building and trust that our friends at Zoned could authentically bring our brand into the Fortnite world and create something truly special,” said Topgolf Chief Brand Officer Geoff Cottrill. He also said that Topgolf has “no plans at the moment” to integrate the Fortnite map into its venues. For now, no other brands besides Topgolf are part of this map -- no branded clubs, balls or other gear is part of this.

Topgolf isn’t selling any in-game transactions in this map. Per Tovar, this is an engagement play. “Topgolf is not selling anything, but our focus is on bringing awareness to go swing your first club at a Topgolf.”

Cottrill said the market opportunity of putting Topgolf into Fortnite matched well with the company’s mission of “bringing more play to the world” and that Topgolf would be “hard-pressed to find something bigger than Fortnite.”

This deal also matches up with a piece of “oft-heard bit of advice” from SBJ’s AXS DRIVE last week: “Meet fans where they are.”

“This is our attempt at meeting our Gen Z audience where they’re at and doing something fun with them,” Cottrill said.

The modes include:

Swing showdown

Topgolf Speedway, featuring racing with a golf cart.

Golf ball ramp jump challenge and Whack-a-Ball

Topgolf World Tour, which features re-creations of four of the company’s locations: Santa Monica, Bangkok, Dubai and Las Vegas.

The World Tour mode is interesting because you’re not just hitting balls -- you become the ball, as you make a speedrun through a tabletop minigolf course. Players will also be able to play Topgolf with any of the outfits (Fortnite’s name for skins) in their collection. So, you could find yourself golfing with Darth Vader.

“That's the beauty of what Epic and Fortnite are creating, which is an ecosystem whose foundation is one of accessibility to and the democratizing of IP,” Tovar said. “We build an experience, letting the fans at home and participants play it in the way they want, wearing the outfits they want and expressing themselves however they might want.

In addition, Zoned/GameSquare and Topgolf enlisted a slew of streamers to help promote today’s launch. Pro Fortnite players Bugha and Clix are streaming to their 13.3 million subscribers on Twitch, and two other notable creators in the Fortnite community, Nate Hill and Kazify, will also promote the Topgolf map (and sharing a code for a discount at all U.S. Topgolf locations). This includes a chance to win a Topgolf Black card.

Zoned’s previous work in Fortnite includes maps and other builds for Mastercard, Samsung, Prime and 5-Hour Energy.

Fastbreak.ai acquires youth sports tournament management platform Tourney Pro

By Rob Schaefer

AI-powered schedule-maker Fastbreak.ai has acquired youth sports tournament management platform Tourney Pro for an undisclosed sum. In addition to integrating its automated scheduling engine into Tourney Pro’s offerings, Fastbreak will onboard Tourney Pro’s 10 employees, including President & Founder Ray Glassman, who becomes Fastbreak’s GM/Youth Products. Glassman founded Tourney Pro in 2022 and launched the One Day Shootouts Midwest youth basketball tournament program in 2009.

“When we went looking to find an opportunity [in youth sports], his name would come up as a high-quality person, well-respected in the industry,” John Stewart, Fastbreak’s co-founder & CEO, told SBJ of Glassman. “People are the most important thing. And then after that, the technology was solid… We’re going to be putting a large amount of investment into that platform.”

Since acquiring schedule-maker Optimal Planning Solutions earlier this month, Fastbreak works with more than 35 professional and collegiate level sports clients, including the NBA, NHL and MLS. The Tourney Pro acquisition adds about another 35 youth sports tournament operators, Stewart said.

The youth sports market was valued at $37.5B in 2022 and is projected to rise to $69.4B by 2030, according to Markets N Research.

Fastbreak’s vision is to build an enterprise software platform for youth sports tournament management, encompassing its scheduling capabilities and Tourney Pro’s suite of functions, including registration, payments and more. “We’re going to bring industrial-scale automation tools and process tools down to a level that typically hasn’t had them, because no one’s willing to invest at that level,” Stewart said.

Closing Shot: UFC Stunner

By Adam Stern

UFC’s Riyadh Season Noche event at Sphere in Las Vegas this month felt in some ways as if it was taking place in 2124 instead of 2024.

The 10-fight card was the first sports competition to take place at the futuristic Sphere, part of the publicly traded Sphere Entertainment Co. The venue has a 160,000-square-foot media plane on the inside, along with what it calls the “exosphere” on the outside that commands the attention of tourists throughout the Strip.

When it opened last summer, the NBA became the first sports property to get involved when the venue showed basketballs on the exosphere, with Formula 1 later doing something similar in November. The NHL held the first sports event inside this past June, though it was its draft and not a competition.

UFC took things to the next level. Before and in between the fights on the main card, the property interspersed 90-second films about the history of combat in Mexico in one of the more unique interplays between sports and entertainment in history.

I had seen Sphere before in person from the outside during last year’s F1 race, and the venue turned into one of the highlights of the weekend with how it interacted with the event, such as having a yellow emoji character wear a helmet and look around.

But going inside the venue was always the true experience for which Sphere was designed, and, as many others, I had seen videos online of the media plane being used for concerts and the NHL Draft. When I first walked out beneath the media plane, as the first fight of the evening began, I saw two rectangular screens and a center-hung lighting fixture that looked so real I thought UFC had brought in the equipment. Instead, they were projections from the media plane.

When the main card started and UFC began showing the six mini-films and the Mexican-themed backdrops that were used during the fights, the sensation of being there was most intense. The three-dimensional graphics and multistory-tall rotating holograms of fighters were simply entrancing. Confetti appeared to fall after some fights.

The whole experience left me wondering which other sports event would size up Sphere next. Some sports clearly require a playing field too large for what Sphere can offer, but if it can fit a basketball court or hockey rink, I won’t be surprised if we see some stick-and-ball leagues hosting competitions there before long.

But be prepared for the challenge of pulling it off. UFC’s productions group and ESPN spent months figuring out just how to light the octagon without the typical center-hung system. UFC and ESPN brought in directors and producers from the Oscars and Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour to help put on the show. UFC originally budgeted $8 million for the event, but wound up spending $20 million to get the production quality it wanted, according to President and CEO Dana White.

“Try to put on an event at Sphere — that’s really hard. Then try to make it a TV show — that’s exponentially harder,” Glenn Jacobs, vice president of MMA production for ESPN, said from the network’s studio set at Sphere minutes before the card was set to begin.

The experience left this reporter, and the rest of the crowd, spellbound. Said Jacobs: “I think we all feel amped up by this, because who doesn’t like working on the coolest stuff?”