The AFL Gamers Network is excited to announce it will be hosting a five-day, 18-team AFL Community Battle in Fortnite with up to 90,000 footy fans starting on Wednesday 27 January.

The highly anticipated in-game event will see leading AFL and AFLW players captain their respective clubs, joining forces with top Australian Fortnite content creators in one of the largest in-game events in Australian history. Each team will be made up of 5,000 players including its AFL Captain and Fortnite content creator. Up to 310,000 spots are available for fans to sign up, and receive an exclusive AFL-inspired in-game item for their participation. Fans can register for their team through this link: https://community-battles.fortnite.com/gxlals/.

Demons’ Jack Viney will be headlining the Battle, along with the Bulldogs’ Bailey Smith, Jamie Elliott from the Pies and Jaidyn Stephenson from the Kangaroos. Smith said he was excited to take on the other clubs in Fortnite with the club’s fans. “It’ll be quite different to the competition we’re used to, and I’m keen to see how we stack up against the other clubs.”

“I’m looking forward to recruiting as many Bulldogs’ fans on board as possible,” said Smith. “It is the first time we have been able to play alongside our fans in any format, and to be able to then go up against all the other clubs – we want to take this thing out!”

Registrations are open today. Participants will need to declare their allegiance to their respective teams, captained by its corresponding AFL player and Fortnite content creator, for their chance to win up to 800 V-Bucks each.

Participants can earn their respective team points by completing time-limited tasks in Fortnite from Wednesday 27 to Sunday 31 January. Each task will yield points that are tallied up for individual players, and overall for their team and captain. The team with the most points by 11:59PM on Sunday 31 January will be crowned champion, winning 800 V-Bucks for each player that participates with up to 5,000 players per team.

Fortnite is a free-to-play Battle Royale game with numerous game modes for every type of player. Released in 2017, it’s one of the most popular games globally and is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, Android and Microsoft Windows.

Launched in April 2020 to cater for footy lovers and gaming fanatics alike, and harnessing the popularity of gaming across the AFL and AFLW playing group, the AFL Gamers Network has proved a hit, with over 500,000 unique viewers and 4.5 million minutes watched in the first six months.

AFL Gamers Network General Manager Ben Sellenger said this was just another exciting opportunity for fans to engage with their AFL heroes.

“The further extension of our partnership with Epic Games to launch Fortnite Community Battles provides the opportunity for all AFL fans to not only engage with their favourite AFL stars, but to actively contribute to their AFL teams success – to help their push up the ladder – an involvement not possible on the pitch, but achievable on the AFL Gamers Network!”

Transporting fans into the inner sanctum of the competition’s best, the AFL Gamers Network is a dedicated hub for AFL players to take their fierce competitiveness to the online world.

Catch the AFL Community Battle and all AFL Gamers Network content on Twitch.tv/AFL.

AFL Community Battle: Full List of Participants

AFL Community Battle: Prize Pool Breakdown (per player, up to 5,000 players per team)

• 1st place: 800 V-Bucks
• 2nd place : 400 V-Bucks
• 3rd place: 200 V-Bucks

All participants: Aussie Rules Spray