TSM Shocks Fans by Exiting Competitive Fortnite, What Happened?

Fortnite's fans were just rejoicing at Epic's lucrative new competitive season. Fortnite's championship series now has a 20 million dollar prize pool after a lot of twitter backlash. It was finally looking like an intense season was fast approaching and that's why it's even more surprising that TSM has decided to drop all of their Fortnite pros right as the action was picking up and the money flowing in.

Yes, the eSports organization TSM has decided to exit the competitive Fortnite scene. While they will still keep their Fortnite content creators they have dropped three talented pros from the organization. This includes notable player Mackwood. In a statement following the release Mackwood did say he was happy to be a free agent. He said it was a new reason to grind and seem to have an overall positive attitude about the future of 2021. While fans were saddened at first Mackwood told them there was no reason to be upset about the news. With a 16th place at worlds and a Season X championship plus a second place finish in FNCS squads Mackwood is sure to be picked up by another organization now that the FNCS has so much money on the line this year.

Today we’re announcing our departure from competitive Fortnite and parting ways with @MackWood1x, @TSM_Ferrrnando, and @Safarooniee.

Thank you for everything you contributed to TSM during your time with the org. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors. pic.twitter.com/A9M9TchuA6

— TSM (@TSM) February 1, 2021

The second pro to be dropped was Saf who is a popular player with a pretty big following on twitch and social media. This includes over 356,000 followers on Twitter. The accomplished player has also earned over 1.1 million throughout his competitive history that includes Saf finishing fourth in the Fortnite world cups finals splitting 1.5 million. It's looking like 2021 will be another lucrative year for him.

The final pro drop from TSM is Ferrrnando. She joined TSM in August of 2020 along with Saf. Ferrrnando had a good run throughout their career showing off a lot of skills in trio competition. The community was honestly quite shocked with TSM's decision to drop the three competitive Fortnite pros.

One of Team Liquid's Fortnite players couldn't help but tweet "tf". For many fans this was not a move they saw coming at all especially not while the Fortnite championship series was just picking up. The biggest mystery is that TSM hasn't stated why they made the decision. While many Fortnite fans have applauded Epic for stepping up the prize pool others have pointed out that the Fortnite world cup was still not happening in 2021. Without that giant worldwide tournament it seemed like competitive Fortnite was possibly not as lucrative as other games for eSports for orgs like TSM.

It's been rumored for a while now that Epic hasn't been offering enough support to keep eSports afloat. For many fans it's been a common thing to say that Epic is killing the pro scene. Others pointed out that the three pros while impressive weren't placing too high in tournaments as of late. With outcomes like these it is possible that TSM wasn't seen a lot of return and it made sense to drop the three pros to avoid paying their salaries.