Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has topped League of Legends to become the second most-lucrative esport in the world. Figures from esportsgaming reveal that Valve now hold the first and second place positions for highest amounts of prize money.
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At the top of the list is Dota 2. That comes as no real surprise, as The International’s annual compendiums draw in prize pools in the tens of millions. That means that while there have only been 890 Dota 2 tournaments since the game’s inception, Valve have paid out a little over $137 million in total.
League of Legends, by contrast, has paid out just under $50 million across its 2005 tournaments over the past few years, and had held second place for quite a while. CS:GO, however, has recently overtaken it, with a total prize pool of $50,674,524. That is, however, spread out over more than 1,000 extra tournaments. So while Counter-Strike has paid out more in total, it’s average prize-per-tournament is around $8,000 lower than LoL’s – $16,404 compared to $24,728. There are also far more pros in Counter-Strike than in League of Legends – those prize pools have been shared across more than 9,000 FPS players, while there have only been 5,268 registered League of Legends professionals.
League is likely to spike again in the coming months, as the Mid-Season Invitational will kick off in May, and Worlds to come later in 2018. CS:GO in the meantime will see an almost immediate rise, as a $100,000 prize pool is up for grabs at the 2018 Copenhagen games.