The Crossover: Court Crashers
View the case- Brand
- NBA
- Year
- 2021
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Racing & Sports
- Platform
- In-Game
- Agency
- Atlas Creative
Objective
The NBA wanted to reach Gen Z where they already spend their time, right as the State Farm NBA Play-In Tournament and the 2021 playoffs were kicking off. Rather than run a one-off ad placement, the league wanted fans to actually root for a team — picking a club, showing up for it over several days, wearing its jersey, and following the league's highlights without ever leaving Fortnite. The push covered all 30 clubs at once, promoting the league as a whole rather than any single franchise.
Solution
Inside Fortnite, players land on the NBA Welcome Hub, a custom island where they wander basketball-themed zones, watch NBA highlight reels on big screens, and buy team jerseys straight from an in-world shop. From there they can drop into The Crossover: Court Crashers, a limited-time mode where two squads, East and West, race down a launch ramp and slam dunk after dunk until one side hits 1000 points. Outside the island, players sign up on a companion site, link their Fortnite account, and pledge allegiance to one of the 30 NBA clubs; over five days they complete daily challenges in normal Fortnite modes, banking points for their team on a league-wide leaderboard. A quest line ties it together, handing out XP and a banner reward for visiting the hub and playing Court Crashers, while the Item Shop sells 31 team jerseys, dunk- and dribble-themed emotes, a back-bling mini-hoop, and locker bundles built around Donovan Mitchell and Trae Young.
Results
The five-day Team Battles tournament (May 19–23, 2021) crowned the Los Angeles Lakers champions, with the Chicago Bulls second and the Brooklyn Nets third. The Lakers were the only club to fill their roster to its 15,000-member cap, versus 800 for the Bulls and 500 for the Warriors, against a total capacity across the campaign of 15,000 members per team plus 500,000 fan slots league-wide.
- 1
Players register for the Fortnite x NBA Team Battles tournament on a dedicated site and log in with their Fortnite account. They pick one of the league's 30 clubs; the first 15,000 to sign up become "members" competing for V-Bucks, while everyone after joins as cosmetic-only "fans."
- 2
Each tournament day unlocks a new challenge on the site, such as playing for 24 minutes or scoring 5 eliminations, completed by playing normal Fortnite modes (solo, duo, trio, squads). From May 22 onward, challenges become repeatable, so players can grind them again and again to keep feeding points into their club's score.
- 3
A leaderboard tab tracks all 30 clubs' standings, giving players a running incentive to push their team toward the top three.
- 4
Completing challenges earns cosmetic rewards, a spray at three and an in-game banner at five, and the tournament's final standings pay out V-Bucks and a champion backbling to the winning club's members, with smaller V-Bucks prizes for second and third place.
- 5
Alongside the tournament, the Item Shop sells the "In The Paint" uniform set covering all 30 clubs plus one exclusive, matching basketball accessories (a hook-shot emote, a dribbling movement emote, a mini hoop back bling), and time-limited personal bundles tied to real NBA players, letting players dress their character in their team's colors.
- 6
Separately, players enter the NBA Welcome Hub, a custom Creative-mode island where they walk through branded basketball zones, watch NBA highlight video on screens, and browse and buy NBA skins on the spot. The visit counts as a step in The Crossover quest chain and awards 50,000 XP.
- 7
From the hub, or via a direct island code, players launch The Crossover: Court Crashers, a limited mode where two teams, East and West, race to 1,000 points. Players ride a ramp and use trampolines and shockwave grenades to launch themselves into dunks, choosing whether to go for costlier distant hoops or occasional double-point windows.
- 8
Dunks, and even missed shots ("air balls"), drop coins, with one more awarded on respawn, fulfilling a separate coin-collecting quest.
- 9
Finishing a Court Crashers match and the coin quest each grant 50,000 XP, and completing every step of The Crossover quest chain unlocks a final reward: a basketball-hoop banner.
