Before Buhga would become the first ever Fortnite World Cup solo champion at just 16 years old
Before he would earn 3 MILLION dollars from the victory
Before he would gain more than 200k followers on Twitter, close to 400k on Instagram, 250k
on YouTube and 162k on Twitch at the time that I’m writing this, although I have a
feeling all of those numbers have probably jumped up since
Although… right after the win his accounts were immediately hacked…
Already dealing with famous people problems.
Man I still get a little bit emotional watching this kid win.
Just to think about being the number one player in the world at something that you give your
all to and have spend years working at, it must an incredible feeling and I’m so happy
for the guy!
Plus, the prize money doesn’t hurt.
To give you an idea of how insane a 3-million-dollar payout is, let’s look at some of the highest
earning professional tournament athletes this year.
In 2019, Djokovic won 2.9 million dollars for Wimbledon, and Tiger Woods won around
2.1 million for his win at the Masters.
So yeah, the Bugha is up there with the greats already.
But don’t worry too much about if the money will change him, because he doesn’t plan
on spending a dime.
What’s going on good people in the comment section?
I hope you’re having one Hecht of a Day, my name is Jeremy Hecht.
If you’re wondering who this is and you haven’t watched in a little while, I’m
the LA host for this channel bringing you weekly content, and today, I’ll be your
host as we document the incredible rise to fame and Fornite success of Bugha.
We’ve covered other gamers recently like TFue and Ninja so be sure to check those out
after you’re finished watching this one.
Let us know who you want us to document next in the comments down below and we’ll be
sure to make those videos for you.
Before we start, I’ve got a trivia question for you:
What does Bugha eat before his big Fortnite matches?
I’ll answer that a little later on but for now, let’s get
into the show!
Kyle Giersdorf was born on December 30, 2002 in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania.
The place has a population of around 3500 people and as of yesterday, this is at least
according to Wikipedia, Kyle had become one of 4 notable people to make it from the neighborhood.
The others include Fashion model Torin Verdone and Country Singer Kendal Condrad.
According to his mom Darcy, Kyle’s been playing video games since he was just 3 years
old.
And Kyle has been planning for this victory for a long time.
I went back and did some digging and I actually found an old stream where he was talking about
how one day he is going to make 2 million dollars.
Your thoughts truly do become things, and what you put out into the world, will come
back to you with hard work.
Kyle basically spent all of his time working on his gaming skills.
It was his one true passion and what he focused most of his energy on.
Besides going to school, his life was dedicated to making himself a better player.
It’s a great lesson for all of you kids out there watching and wondering how he did
it and how you can get there one day?
There is no secret to success.
There is a lot of hard work and believing in yourself enough to know that even when
no one else thinks you’re good enough, you know you are.
Just listen to how he talks about his daily routine.
Kyle started streaming online.
And he wasn’t doing it for the numbers either, it was for the love of the game.
Because some of his early streams were getting less than one hundred views, with some having
only 20-40 viewers.
But he would still stream for hours at a time and loved to keep the people who WERE watching
entertained.
He also began uploading videos onto Youtube at around the same time.
His videos included short montage highlight clips put to music.
Some of them had more than 50k views and by February of 2019, Bugha had 5 thousand subscribers
on his channel and more than 120k channel views.
Based on his streams, it seems like he’s a fan of Lil Uzi and 21 Savage as his gaming
soundtracks.
But he has a pretty diverse taste in music because his videos included music by everyone
from 88Rising to Brockhampton to Wallows and more.
But while he liked to play video games for fun, the guy was about his business.
While most of his friends were probably enjoying their winter vacations, Bugha was battling
it out on Fortnite practicing.
I found an old tweet where he said:
“Christmas break = grind time”
He’s also got a really cute dog named Zoey joins him on stream sometimes.
Although because of Bugha’s dedication to Fortnite, his grades were slipping.
During an old stream he admitted that his GPA was as low as 2.8.
He also didn’t seem to be very interested in school or in attending college.
But he told one of his friends online that he wouldn’t need college because instead
of showing his GPA, he’ll just walk around with his Fortnite earnings on his t-shirt
and everyone will show him the respect he deserves.
It’s crazy how Bugha knew exactly where he was going to be in the future, it was just
a matter of time.
He was so dedicated to the game and his streaming that he often times wanted to eat in front
of his computer.
But his parents made him eat dinner at the table with them for the most part, rather
than in front of his computer while streaming.
His parents were extremely supportive of his dreams though and were in attendance at the
World Cup watching him shine.
Eventually, the hard work started to pay off and Bugha’s skills were noticed.
In March of 2019, he signed on to join the Sentinels team.
The Sentinels are known for running the Los Angeles Gladiators Overwatch team and also
have a team in Apex Legends and Hearthstone.
Their Fortnite team has 4 members including Bughas.
Before the tournament, they were a relatively unknown team but I have a feeling a lot of
kids are going to be sending in their highlight tapes trying to be the newest members.
By April of this year, he surpassed 11 thousand subscribers on YouTube and was continuing
to build a name for himself in the Fortnite community.
Some big YouTubers were commenting on his stuff.
In June, Bugha won 1300 dollars in a World Cup qualifier as well as $800 in a duo competition
just a week earlier.
And by July, he was teaming up with TFue for games:
Bugha qualified for Fortnite 2019 World Cup Finals where he would finally get the chance
to show off his skills on the world stage.
That was also the moment that his mother knew her son had a real future with gaming.
And pun intended, that this was not just a game.
The tournament was held at Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium in New York City and millions tuned
in online to see who would take home the title.
In his first game in the Cup Finals, he won with a 9 kill victory.
He had 19 points after the first game, ending up with 59 total points, which gave him a
wild 20 point lead to the runner up.
Bugha didn’t only win but absolutely dominated the competition.
I also wanna give a quick shoutout to Harrison Chang who was the second place runner up and
took home 1.8 milli from the tourney.
He is 24 years old and was one of the oldest people competing in the tournament.
Which makes me feel old at 25, but he told CNN Business:
It's great representing the old dudes: Experience and composure trump everything
Fortnite is a young man's game though.
So shoutout to him for representing us old guys!
Before this tournament, Bugha wasn’t completely unknown, making waves within the competitive
scene,
but in terms of mainstream notoriety, winning that tournament sent him into a whole new
level of fame.
So what is he going to do with the money?
Well Bugha says that he’s going to save all the money and put it into his future.
That’s a grounded kid.
Also, according to ESPN.com, Bugha eats a Wawa sandwich and a Gatorade before every
important online game.
But apparently, he didn’t have either before his big win, so just goes to show you that
most pregame rituals are there to help you feel comfortable, but at the end of the day,
it’s all internal.
If you’ve got it, you’ve got it.
As for the future, he told ESPN ESports that he is motivated to keep competing and looks
forward to being a part of all future Epic events: