FNCS Prize Money History – How Much Money Can Be Won in the FNCS?

Fortnite is now in Chapter 6 with a pretty well established esports side, but by the looks of FNCS prize money, you wouldn’t think the modern tournaments have such a higher skill level than the early ones. Over the course of its run, Fortnite esports prize money has changed quite a bit. From the height of the World Cup, it seems there is currently less being spent on Fortnite esports prizes.

At one point, the Fortnite esports prize pool was breaking records! Although in 2025, with BLAST taking over running the esports and the game firmly settled, the prize pool has settled down a little bit. For the very best Fortnite Trios there is still more than enough money out there. But it has lessened from previous years. This is what Fortnite’s Prize History has looked like in all six Chapters.

How Much Money Can Be Won in the FNCS?

Before we get into specifics with the FNCS prize money, how much can you actually stand to win? It varies on your performance obviously, but we can look at how much the best performing Fortnite players have made. In Chapter 5, we saw one Duo run away with the competition in the most profitable region for the game. This is how much they made, or roughly the highest answer to much money can be won in the FNCS:

• Major 1 – $90,000
• Major 2 – $140,000
• Major 3 – $140,000
• Global Championship – $400,000
• Total – $770,000

That’s based on their actual performance! If they had won Major 1 instead of only coming 2nd, their total would be at $1.19 million.

Now that’s for the Duo. So, it works out at about £385,000 each. Not counting all of the extra money to made through sponsorships, streams, and everything else that comes with being the best Fortnite player.

It’s the most we’ve seen a team earn in a year of FNCS. But FNCS winners frequently take victory in multiple years. It really just comes down to how long a player can stay at peak performance. That’s theoretically the height for how much money can be won in the FNCS.

The total number for FNCS prize money is a lot higher. Mainly down to there being so many regions. Since players can only compete in one Fortnite region, and only get one position’s worth of prize money, then that total for each Major and LAN is the most a single team can win.

Fortnite Esports Prize History

Fortnite esports began shortly after the game’s launch, with content creators hosting their own events! Fortnite Fridays and similar tournaments were wholly DIY. Players queueing up into the same game and having a kill race. There wasn’t the structure to host tournaments with real lobbies and prizes yet. Epic took notice, and decided the silly Battle Royale title where players dance on each other could be an esports force too.

Their early events were a mess.

Notably, the Winter Royale. Which they held right as an OP sword was added into the game, which gave free heals, extra health, damage, basically made you Superman. This ruined the early tournament, with its Fortnite esports prize of £1 million.

It wouldn’t be the last time a single-player advantage item was added to the game. But it also wouldn’t be the first major prize pool for the game. After some experiments, Epic decided to jump in head first and begin to offer a Fortnite esports event. The World Cup.

This was the biggest event Fortnite had ever seen. Between the World Cup, its Qualifiers, and other events in the same year. Epic made esports prize pool history. They put up $30 million in total across 2019. Weekly events with a $1 million at stake, and the World Cup itself, which gave the highest earning Fortnite players their titles!

The World Cup format would be retired afterwards, and the prize pool settled into something a bit more sustainable than outdoing The International. The FNCS prize pool was lower, but occurred much more often.

FNCS Prize Pool History

For the vast majority of Fortnite seasons at this point, we’ve had an FNCS.

It started at a decent level, but definitely quite a bit lower than the World Cup. The Fortnite esports prize pool got lower with successive FNCS seasons. Until Chapter 2 Season 5. Then it changed.

It started increasing again. Suddenly, the answer to how much money can be won in the FNCS was going up and up.

Until Chapter 2 Season 6 where we saw the prize pool once again break a million for the EU. It stayed up there for a while. It’s fluctuated in size ever since. But the change to a yearly format, with a LAN at the end has had a change too. We’ve started seeing the seasonal events more as qualifiers for something bigger. With the FNCS now getting a LAN with a bigger prize pool, and less FNCS prize money for individual seasons.

This is how the prize pool has changed over the course of its run:

What FNCS Had the Biggest prize?

The biggest single prize for the FNCS is the 2023 Global Championship. This was our biggest LAN for the FNCS yet, after some build up with tournaments like the Grand Royale. The Fortnite Esports prize has lowered for the FNCS since though.

This event had a prize pool of $3,952,000 in total! It was an international LAN. So, it was only held once, it wasn’t a one per region thing like the qualifiers.

World Cup Still Holds the Record

The biggest prize pool in Fortnite esports prize history isn’t the FNCS, but the World Cup. Despite the years since, the V-Bucks spent, and all the inflation, the World Cup’s record hasn’t been touched.

When Epic launched the World Cup, they basically throw money around. They put-up record-breaking prize pool to get eyes on Fortnite. It was before a competitive scene existed. When they put up these prices in hopes of getting people to start taking Fortnite very seriously. In current seasons, the game doesn’t really need to tempt people in as badly. There are enough people playing Fortnite who jump at the chance to join tournaments, so the FNCS prize pool isn’t quite as high.

The FNCS does still offer quite an impressive pool though. Especially when you consider that you need to get through a Major to reach the LAN. Players who perform well at the LAN have already taken a big prize from the major. They’ll get an impressive sum from the game.

What FNCS Had the Lowest Prize?

The lowest FNCS prize pool was $64,600. That was back in Chapter 3, and specifically it was for the Oceania region. These regions do have lower prize pools in general though. They’ve had the lowest FNCS prize money since it began.