Esports prize money dynamics from 2018 to 2023

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The prize pool is as a pivotal element of any tournament in today's esports. While teams and players primarily vied for respect among their peers or perhaps small souvenirs in the past, today's landscape has transformed drastically: winning a major championship can catapult an ordinary player into the realm of million-dollar earners.

Million-dollar super tournaments did not appear right away. The trend began in 2011 when Valve offered an incredible sum of $1.6M at Dota's The International. At that time, it seemed unimaginable, but more and more similar tournaments emerged in esports each year. Nowadays, developers use such events for marketing and promoting their games; every major esports title has one or several million-dollar tournaments that attract new players with the opportunity to win big money.

Over the past five years, the number of million-dollar tournaments has increased by 41%. There were 36 such events in 2018, and their number had risen to 51 by 2023. For a long time, the most lucrative tournaments in the industry remained The International series. For example, the prize pool of The International 2021 amounted to just over $40M — the highest figure among all esports games.

In 2018-2019, Dota 2 and Fortnite had the most million-dollar tournaments. In other games, only the largest championships, such as CS:GO Majors or League of Legends World Championships, could boast such sums. The number of tournaments with prize pools ranging from $500K to $1M also increased. In 2018-2019, their number grew by almost 40%.

The coronavirus pandemic struck in 2020, significantly impacting the entire industry, including the dynamics of prize pool growth. The largest tournaments were always held in LAN format, but due to quarantine restrictions, organizers couldn't guarantee the presence of all players. Moreover, many countries had bans on holding mass events. During this challenging period, the industry had to quickly adapt to the circumstances — instead of major international tournaments, organizers began hosting numerous local online championships in individual countries or regions. For example, instead of the ESL One Los Angeles 2020 Major five regional tournaments were held. Tournaments such as Dota Summit, OGA Dota PIT, and other series also transitioned to the online format. Many new online leagues appeared in the discipline, especially in Eastern Europe — local bookmakers began actively investing in esports projects, as traditional sports were also "on hold" due to the coronavirus at the time.

A similar situation occurred in Counter-Strike: almost all major tournaments from ESL, BLAST, IEM, and DreamHack were canceled, but organizers held smaller online tournaments instead. Typically, participants were divided into two divisions: Europe and America. This helped solve the problem with ping and time zones.

In 2021, the dynamics of prize pools began to grow again and essentially returned to pre-pandemic levels. That year, Valve hosted The International 2021 with a record prize pool of $40M. Disciplines such as PUBG and Honor of Kings also saw increased activity.

In 2022-2023, the number of major tournaments continued to grow, with Saudi Arabia playing a significant role. The local esports scene began to develop rapidly, and Riyadh was unofficially dubbed the new capital of digital entertainment. Gamers8 festival was launched in Saudi Arabia, featuring numerous major tournaments in various disciplines: the total prize pool of all Gamers8 events in 2023 amounted to $45M. Of these, only the Riyadh Masters had a prize pool of $15M. In total, eight tournaments with prizes of $1M and above were held within Gamers8 in 2023.