{"id":5859,"date":"2024-04-03T14:47:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T14:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/news\/games\/explaining-why-prize-pool-varies-in-esports"},"modified":"2026-03-15T18:57:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T17:57:59","slug":"explaining-why-prize-pool-varies-in-esports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/news\/games\/explaining-why-prize-pool-varies-in-esports\/","title":{"rendered":"Explaining Why Prize Pool Varies in eSports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For any\u00a0<strong>eSports<\/strong>\u00a0fan out there, it is pretty evident at this point that such games as\u00a0<strong>Dota 2<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>League of Legends<\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong>Counter-Strike 2<\/strong>\u00a0have a massive difference in their tournament&#8217;s prize pools, and here we will try to explain why it is like this and the reasons behind it.<\/p>\n<h2>The Biggest Prize Pool<\/h2>\n<h3>Dota 2<\/h3>\n<div class=\"_44tKOV3EvA2Ivv21VkJmnQ==\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/294c2fe15bf28749.png\"> <span><\/span><\/div>\n<p>For\u00a0<strong>Dota 2<\/strong>, it is going to be\u00a0<strong>The International 2021<\/strong>\u00a0to come on top with a considerable amount of money for the prize pool, and the number is\u00a0<strong>$40,018,400.00<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Besides that, it&#8217;s important to mention that the other 6 biggest prize pools in\u00a0<strong>eSports<\/strong>\u00a0history belong to\u00a0<strong>Dota 2<\/strong>\u00a0as well before anyone else. That&#8217;s how it looks:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The International 2019 &#8211; Prize Pool &#8211; <strong>$34,330,069.00<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The International 2018 &#8211; Prize Pool &#8211; <strong>$25,532,177.00<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The International 2017 &#8211; Prize Pool &#8211; <strong>$24,687,919.00<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The International 2019 &#8211; Prize Pool &#8211; <strong>$20,770,460.00<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The International 2019 &#8211; Prize Pool &#8211; <strong>$18,930,256.00<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The International 2019 &#8211; Prize Pool &#8211; <strong>$18,429,613.05<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>CS:GO and Counter-Strike 2<\/h3>\n<div class=\"_44tKOV3EvA2Ivv21VkJmnQ==\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/d864974a89d19c5f.jpeg\"> <span><\/span><\/div>\n<p>The most giant prize pool for\u00a0<strong>Counter-Strike<\/strong>\u00a0was\u00a0<strong>PGL Major Stockholm 2021<\/strong>, which was\u00a0<strong>$2,000,000.00<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3>League of Legends<\/h3>\n<div class=\"_44tKOV3EvA2Ivv21VkJmnQ==\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/b31841d7f32a5f9e.jpeg\"> <span><\/span><\/div>\n<p>The largest prize pool for this game will be at the\u00a0<strong>LoL 2018 World Championship,\u00a0<\/strong>which was as much as\u00a0<strong>$6,450,000.00<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>So, as you can see, for now, it&#8217;s out of the question that\u00a0<strong>Dota 2\u00a0<\/strong>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.<\/p>\n<h2>Why is the Prize Pool Worlds Less Than Dota?<\/h2>\n<p>For every game, there is a reason for such a difference in the prize pools of its tournaments. Let&#8217;s take on every single one of them.<\/p>\n<p>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\u00a0<strong>Counter-Strike<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0<strong>League of Legends<\/strong>. On top of that, the main reason\u00a0<strong>The International<\/strong>\u00a0has such a tremendous amount of money for a prize pool is the money from the people and the<strong>\u00a0Dota 2\u00a0<\/strong>fanbase. They made a\u00a0<strong>Battle Pass<\/strong>\u00a0before every\u00a0<strong>The International<\/strong>\u00a0and 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\u00a0<strong>$40,018,400.00<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211; how much money do you think it was from the start?\u00a0<strong>$1,600,000<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211; this is the amount of money announced as a base prize pool. This means they added an extra\u00a0<strong>$38,418,195<\/strong>\u00a0to the prize price by selling. Remember, it&#8217;s only 25% of the sale they made? It&#8217;s easy to count that if it&#8217;s only 25%, <strong>Valve\u00a0<\/strong>made even more money from that. But later, it changed, and other International tournaments had fewer prize pools. You can learn more about it <a href=\"https:\/\/blix.gg\/news\/why-is-the-international-12-prize-pool-so-low-whats-happening\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>CS:GO and Counter-Strike 2<\/h3>\n<div class=\"_44tKOV3EvA2Ivv21VkJmnQ==\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/010667fb2655e4e6.jpeg\"> <span><\/span><\/div>\n<p>This game might have a smaller prize pool at their tournaments, but they have something extra for players primarily, and it&#8217;s in-game\u00a0<strong>stickers<\/strong>\u00a0every 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.<\/p>\n<p>For example, even if you lose at the Major and win some share of the prize pool, and even if it&#8217;s not big and something around\u00a0<strong>$50,000.00<\/strong>, you can still make four more times than that just by having your\u00a0<strong>stickers<\/strong>\u00a0on the marketplace and getting a share. That&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<h3>League of Legends<\/h3>\n<div class=\"_44tKOV3EvA2Ivv21VkJmnQ==\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/1c3abba95955a11e.jpeg\"> <span><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Well, it is easier to explain this game significantly.\u00a0<strong>League of Legends<\/strong>\u00a0players&#8217; salaries are much higher than<strong>\u00a0Dota 2<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0<strong>Counter-Strike 2\u00a0<\/strong>players. The main reason is that<strong>\u00a0Riot\u00a0<\/strong>has a specified minimum wage that teams must offer players. This is about\u00a0<strong>$75,000.00<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211; a minimum salary for Major regions such as Europe and North America.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s also a rumor that\u00a0<strong>Lee&#8217; Faker&#8217; Sang-hyeok<\/strong>, the most famous\u00a0<strong>League of Legends\u00a0<\/strong>and maybe even eSports player, has an estimated salary of\u00a0<strong>$5,800,000.00<\/strong>\u00a0annually.<\/p>\n<p>On top of everything, players in<strong>\u00a0League of Legends<\/strong>\u00a0might have individual performance bonuses and sponsorship deals, advertising partnerships, etc., and get extra money from that.<\/p>\n<p>Now, we will go to some interesting numbers and individual records of money earned by tournament winnings in every game by its players.<\/p>\n<h2>Tournament Winnings Records<\/h2>\n<p>The record belongs to\u00a0<strong>Johan &#8216;N0tail&#8217; Sundstein<\/strong>, a<strong>\u00a0Dota 2\u00a0<\/strong>player who got two International winnings two years in a row. Luckily, they had one of the biggest prize pools in eSports history,\u00a0<strong>The International 2018<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>The International 2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The list goes on with\u00a0<strong>Dota 2<\/strong>\u00a0players because of the vast amount of money in the prize pool until\u00a0<strong>Fortnite\u00a0<\/strong>player\u00a0<strong>Kyle&#8217; Bugha&#8217; Giersdorf<\/strong>\u00a0breaks it with\u00a0<strong>$3,684,091.72<\/strong>\u00a0made to his name in tournament winnings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Peter &#8216;dupreeh&#8217; Rasmussen<\/strong>\u00a0holds a record for Counter-Strike, which is<strong>\u00a0$2,195,064.40<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the League of Legends record belongs to its most famous player,<strong>\u00a0Lee &#8216;Faker&#8217; Sang-hyeok<\/strong>, who has as much as\u00a0<strong>$1,570,297.00<\/strong>\u00a0in tournament winnings.<\/p>\n<h2>Good and Bad Sides<\/h2>\n<p>Is it a good thing to have a massive prize pool or a bad one?<\/p>\n<p>It can go both ways, that&#8217;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.?<\/p>\n<p>So, no answer could be 100% correct, and it depends on many other things.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>We hope we explained it and answered the questions about why there&#8217;s such a difference there. Now you can understand that it&#8217;s not that big if you count all together for the players.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For any\u00a0eSports\u00a0fan out there, it is pretty evident at this point that such games as\u00a0Dota 2,\u00a0League of Legends, and\u00a0Counter-Strike 2\u00a0have a massive difference in their tournament&#8217;s prize pools, and here we will try to explain why it is like this and the reasons behind it. The Biggest Prize Pool Dota 2 For\u00a0Dota 2, it is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":5860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-games"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blix.gg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}