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Team Secret Signs 13-Year-Old To Play Fortnite Professionally
Despite there being no real structure for Fortnite as an esport, Team Secret of Dota 2 fame has announced they have put together a team for the game, including a player still in middle school.
Team Secret CEO John Yao has been looking toward a future for Fortnite esports organized by Epic and wanted to get in on the ground floor of the best players. "Our guess is that Epic Games is also going to announce something and get behind the esports scene," Yao told ESPN. "And so, before everybody else jumps in and all the good players get signed up, we wanted to make a preemptive strike."
Yao ended up picking players from Norway, the UK, and Latvia. The UK-based player, Kyle "Mongraal" Jackson, was discovered afterwards to be a little younger than Yao thought.
"I actually had no idea he was 13 until the team told me," Yao said. "Because when we looked at some of the videos and we looked at their game play, it was not apparent. What immediately stood out to me was how mature he was, and he sounded just like one of the other guys."
Mongraal started playing games with Call of Duty when he was nine years old and got into Fortnite relatively recently, but has been an ace at it, even if he needed his parents' consent to sign on.
While Team Secret waits for an official Fortnite League to spring up, they'll be taking on all comers and entering any informal tournaments that might pop up.
[Source: ESPN]
Our Take
It's a wild world when kids get on esports teams, but if they've got the skills, it's also a super cool thing to see them up there. I hope this ends up being entertaining in all the right ways.
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