The players and teams have gone from garages to the biggest arenas in no time, and the money invested in competitions has also seen a spectacular growth. If this sad period marked a stop in the joyful universe of physical esports competitions, the machine has been back on track since the lifting of health constraints. Today, the largest cash prize distributed amounts to over 40 million dollars, and it’s Team Spirit that has won the jackpot on DOTA2.
Indeed, The International has the particularity of allowing the Dota 2 community to finance part of the winnings. An ingenious idea that still makes Valve’s MOBA the undisputed number one in cash prizes. In the rest of the top 20, we obviously find many other games.
The essential League of Legends, Fortnite or Call of Duty are obviously part of it… but more unexpected names have crept into the list. The biggest surprise is undoubtedly the absence of CS:GO. Although the Valve FPS esports scene is very developed, it is mostly its competitive format that prevents it from competing with the astronomical sums in this ranking.
In fact, CS pros compete in numerous competitions throughout the year, and there is no single event to mark the end of a season, with a huge cash prize at stake. As for the pleasant surprises, we can mention the presence of 4 Honor of Kings events in the Top 20. This serves to remind us that mobile esports is already a huge machine in some regions of the world.
Below are the 20 events that have offered the biggest cash prizes in the history of esports.