For any eSports fan out there, it is pretty evident at this point that such games as Dota 2, League of Legends, and Counter-Strike 2 have a massive difference in their tournament’s prize pools, and here we will try to explain why it is like this and the reasons behind it.
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The Biggest Prize Pool
Dota 2
For Dota 2, it is going to be The International 2021 to come on top with a considerable amount of money for the prize pool, and the number is $40,018,400.00
Besides that, it’s important to mention that the other 6 biggest prize pools in eSports history belong to Dota 2 as well before anyone else. That’s how it looks:
- The International 2019 – Prize Pool – $34,330,069.00
- The International 2018 – Prize Pool – $25,532,177.00
- The International 2017 – Prize Pool – $24,687,919.00
- The International 2019 – Prize Pool – $20,770,460.00
- The International 2019 – Prize Pool – $18,930,256.00
- The International 2019 – Prize Pool – $18,429,613.05
CS:GO and Counter-Strike 2
The most giant prize pool for Counter-Strike was PGL Major Stockholm 2021, which was $2,000,000.00.
League of Legends
The largest prize pool for this game will be at the LoL 2018 World Championship, which was as much as $6,450,000.00.
So, as you can see, for now, it’s out of the question that Dota 2 is far from others in terms of the prize pool they have had in history. Is it good or bad? We will come back to that point later as well.
Why is the Prize Pool Worlds Less Than Dota?
For every game, there is a reason for such a difference in the prize pools of its tournaments. Let’s take on every single one of them.
The main money that players get will be from the prize pool of the tournaments, especially while there might be lower salaries for players than in Counter-Strike or League of Legends. On top of that, the main reason The International has such a tremendous amount of money for a prize pool is the money from the people and the Dota 2 fanbase. They made a Battle Pass before every The International and 25% of the money went into the Prize Pool from everything players could buy in-game. For example, if we look at the giant prize pool, which is $40,018,400.00 – how much money do you think it was from the start? $1,600,000 – this is the amount of money announced as a base prize pool. This means they added an extra $38,418,195 to the prize price by selling. Remember, it’s only 25% of the sale they made? It’s easy to count that if it’s only 25%, Valve made even more money from that. But later, it changed, and other International tournaments had fewer prize pools. You can learn more about it here.
CS:GO and Counter-Strike 2
This game might have a smaller prize pool at their tournaments, but they have something extra for players primarily, and it’s in-game stickers every team and player gets when they qualify for the Major tournaments. How it works? Organizations and players get a share of the amount of money from stickers that get sold.
For example, even if you lose at the Major and win some share of the prize pool, and even if it’s not big and something around $50,000.00, you can still make four more times than that just by having your stickers on the marketplace and getting a share. That’s why any major tournament is essential for every team in this game: qualifying for it is already a lot of success and brings you a lot of money from the start.
League of Legends
Well, it is easier to explain this game significantly. League of Legends players’ salaries are much higher than Dota 2 or Counter-Strike 2 players. The main reason is that Riot has a specified minimum wage that teams must offer players. This is about $75,000.00 – a minimum salary for Major regions such as Europe and North America.
There’s also a rumor that Lee’ Faker’ Sang-hyeok, the most famous League of Legends and maybe even eSports player, has an estimated salary of $5,800,000.00 annually.
On top of everything, players in League of Legends might have individual performance bonuses and sponsorship deals, advertising partnerships, etc., and get extra money from that.
Now, we will go to some interesting numbers and individual records of money earned by tournament winnings in every game by its players.
Tournament Winnings Records
The record belongs to Johan ‘N0tail’ Sundstein, a Dota 2 player who got two International winnings two years in a row. Luckily, they had one of the biggest prize pools in eSports history, The International 2018 and The International 2019.
The list goes on with Dota 2 players because of the vast amount of money in the prize pool until Fortnite player Kyle’ Bugha’ Giersdorf breaks it with $3,684,091.72 made to his name in tournament winnings.
Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen holds a record for Counter-Strike, which is $2,195,064.40.
Finally, the League of Legends record belongs to its most famous player, Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok, who has as much as $1,570,297.00 in tournament winnings.
Good and Bad Sides
Is it a good thing to have a massive prize pool or a bad one?
It can go both ways, that’s for sure. For example, why would you play and give it everything for a small tournament if you have the biggest one that surpasses all others in prize pool money? Imagine it as if you were a player. Or would you get more motivated to play every single tournament for your full potential when you would have a stable, much higher salary per month and, on top of that, performance bonuses, etc.?
So, no answer could be 100% correct, and it depends on many other things.
We hope we explained it and answered the questions about why there’s such a difference there. Now you can understand that it’s not that big if you count all together for the players.
