Esports World Cup insights: How will record prize pool be distributed and which games set new records?
The highly-anticipated Esports World Cup 2024 brings with it a staggering total purse of $60 million across 22 tournaments. It includes record amounts for a few games, while a few others will see the joint highest winnings ever handed to its winners and participants. This is sure to change things for many titles going forward as they will have more funds to work with and improve the general structure of their competitive segment.
The first event at this cross-event spectacle — MLBB Mid Season Cup 2024 — is ongoing, having begun on June 28. This Mobile Legends: Bang Bang tournament will carry a record prize money of $3 million, the highest ever in the game's competitive history.
With so much money at stake in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, there are bound to be some interesting insights regarding the 21 games that will be seen in action over the next two months.
The game with the highest prize money at the Esports World Cup 2024 is Dota 2, which is giving away a massive $5,000,000 at the Riyadh Masters 2024. Alongside MLBB, it is the only title to contribute more than ten percent to the overall purse at this multinational extravaganza.
Speaking of Mobile Legends, the women's competition, MLBB Women's Invitational 2024, will also see a record prize pool of $500,000, meaning the combined amount being offered by the highly popular discipline is $3,500,000. This game has also seen the biggest jump (233%) between record purses before and after the EWC 2024 among the games seen in Riyadh. The previous highest funding for any MLBB event was $900,000 at the fifth edition of its annual world championship tournament.
On the women's side, the difference was even higher, with the previous highest prize purse tournaments being the MLBB Women's Invitational 2023 and the Snapdragon Pro Series: Women's League APJ Finals at $30,000. This means that the EWC 2024 will see a rise of 1567% in winnings for females competing at the biggest event in their discipline.
It also matched the highest winnings awarded to women, which came about at the two recent record-breaking editions of the Valorant Game Changers series. After all, both the 2022 and 2023 championships made it to the all-time top five leaderboard for most popular female esports tournaments.
Three other disciplines will see record prize money being handed out to teams in Saudi Arabia. StarCraft II's $1,000,000 purse is 43% more than the previous mark, while Call of Duty: Warzone ($1,000,000, a 100% increment) and Teamfight Tactics ($500,000, a 10% increase) will also see improvements in how much money participants can earn.
Moving to how each genre has fared in terms of representation and prize money share, MOBA and Battle Royale are the unsurprising winners. Both account for over 25% of the total earnings available, with FPS being the only other mode to cross 10% by share with a total purse of $5,800,000.
With only three games — MLBB, PUBG Mobile, and Honor of Kings — representing mobile esports at the Esports World Cup 2024, the platform share falls heavily towards desktop disciplines. The split is 72.3%-27.7%, although the three smartphone entries have a good chance of leaving a big mark as they are some of the most popular competitive video games globally today.
Lest we forget, it would be prudent not to add the break up of how many games fall within which prize purse bracket. Dota 2 is the only one to see over $3,500,000, with the three mobile esports titles setting aside between $3,500,000 and $3,000,000 for the participants. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, PUBG: Battlegrounds, and Apex Legends all have $2,000,000 as total winnings, with the remaining disciplines settling between $1,800,000 and $500,000.
For a better understanding of how these games are seeing development thanks to the high revenue on offer, every discipline is benefitting from a rise when looking at tournaments after 2020 with a prize pool greater than $500,000. Names like Teamfight Tactics, Rennsport, COD: Warzone, Tekken, StarCraft II, and Street Fighter have especially benefitted, with the rises being pretty high.
Apart from MLBB, all these other disciplines have found niche spaces for themselves in the global competitive scene. Their competitions are mostly compact affairs with average winnings on offer and attracting crowds in the thousands. As a result, this rise in prize money will be highly beneficial in helping them upscale and try and make that step up to the next level occupied by more prominent names like League of Legends, PUBG Mobile, and Counter-Strike.
There's lots to like about how the increased prize money (records in many cases) will help participating disciplines, especially the less renowned ones, build their ecosystems and bring more stability to their calendars. Add to that the participation of the world's best teams and almost two months of intense action, and the Esports World Cup has concocted quite the recipe for success.
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