When they first came to life in the 90s, e-sports prizes were quite fancy, even for that era. Despite this, they were no match for today’s cash prizes that can buy more than just a Rolex for the winners. With crowd funding platforms taking center stage, e-sports have become quite the lucrative business. The following is a list of some of the biggest cash prizes in e-sports competitions in the modern era:
The International 6
Valve’s International 6 event, saw a total of $20.4 million being raised to fund the championship’s prize pools. The victorious team, Wings Gaming was awarded $9.1 million for their achievements.
Dota 2 Asia Championship
Held in China, the championship was won by the Evil Geniuses team and they thrashed rivals, Vici Gaming in a brutal 3-Nil defeat. The overall prize pool was a little over $3 million.
Halo World Championship
In 2016, Microsoft sponsored the Halo World Championship which saw $2.5 million being raised in prize money. In a pool that was filled with some of the best teams in the world, Counter Logic Gaming beat out the rest to win a cool one million dollars.
Smite World Championship, 2015
Hi-Rez studios introduced crowdfunding to raise the prize money to $2.6 million from the original $1 million and the winners, Cognitive Gaming won a total of $1.3 million which was about half of the total amount raised.
Call of Duty XP Championship
The 2016 Call of Duty XP championship offered up a total cash prize of $2 million and was hosted by Activision.
World E-sports Games
When the first e-sports world championships were held, a cash prize of $1.5 million was offered by Alibaba, a sales company in China.
BlizzCon World Champs
These champions ranked in the top ten of the biggest cash prizes offered at an e-sports competition with a prize of $1million.
Final Word
Since their inception, e-sports have risen up the entertainment ranks and have grown into a global financial powerhouse that has seen many players earn large sums of money. With the addition of crowdfunding platforms, cash prizes have surged over the years and it is not uncommon for some players to call it quits after winning millions of dollars in championships. In some cases, players will not show up if the cash prize is low and this has put pressure on organisers to step up and raise attractive amounts of funds.
