In an announcement that was surprisingly brief, Epic Games has said they will be spending $100 million on the prize pools for their first Fortnite esport season. They stated that across 2018-2019, the amount will be used to fund “prize pools for Fortnite competitions.” While this is a considerable amount of cash, it is important to point out that the amount is said to be used for numerous prize pools and competitions, not a singular tournament.

No matter how you look at it, this is an impressive amount. In 2017, the total prize pool across majors and minors tournaments in Dota 2 totaled just over $34 million, and this amount would be nearly three times that.

It is worth pointing out, however, that no details have been given about the kind of structure that Fortnite will have as an esport. Overwatch and League of Legends have gone with a traditional setup for an international sport with teams competing in their specific regions and qualifying as appropriate. However, Dota 2 and CS:GO both operate off a point system similar to tennis. In a system like this, teams get points according to how they place in various tournaments across the globe. Usually, these systems have fewer tournaments total but require players to travel often. It is also possible that a team could end up in first place without ever actually winning a tournament (since the points are given based on position of each tournament).

For Fortnite, some of this $100 million could be dedicated to funding smaller events across a number of regions. Epic Games has not yet started moving to models like enfranchisement as LoL and Overwatch both have, which makes investment into the esport rather difficult. Instead, Epic Games may be looking to spend the money across dozens of tournaments to gauge and drive up interest. It seems unlikely they will beat the prize pool for Dota 2 for a single tournament – especially since that number is expected to rise above $30 million in 2018 – but Fortnite could plan on doing just that. Just as they have been pushing for huge events with Ninja, they may just be trying to stay in the spotlight for as long as possible.

An expenditure like this could also be a huge risk for the company. While every sign indicates that esports are a winning horse, the support for the industry has grown slowly, and many organizations still run at a loss or are woefully behind in data collection. Epic Games is taking a pretty expensive gamble on Fortnite – especially considering that Battle Royales have not been tested as successful esports.

Everyone doubted Blizzard when they invested millions into turning Overwatch into an esport. Even with the industry titan at the helm, the game didn’t have an organically grown competitive scene like all other esports. However, it did have years of similar FPS games to support it.

Battle Royales are their own genre, and for now, there is no proof that fans will come in by the droves or stick around for the tournaments that will follow. Organizing a live tournament for a Battle Royale also has lots of logistical nightmares. Putting 100 players into a room together all with their own high-end equipment will be challenging if not impossible. Dozens of players would also be eliminated almost immediately, creating a bizarre viewing process of seeing players arrive only to leave minutes later.

The only real evidence that fans enjoy watching Fortnite is in streams and Youtube videos of the game. But that might also have more to do with publicity stunts like rappers on stream than it does actual interest. Thousands of fans watching at home also isn’t the same as thousands of fans watching from an arena. $100 million may sound expensive, but it might be the only thing Epic Games could do to try and make this venture work.