Dota 2 is once again trying to make eSports history with the biggest prize pool in eSports. Coming it at a gigantic $20 million, the prize pool offers $100,000 even to last place!
The International 2016’s Main Event began yesterday for the upper bracket quarterfinals and will last until Saturday, August 13. 18 teams from around the world will take part in the tournament, for a shot at winning the biggest prize in eSports history.
Since this year’s prize pool is greater than last year’s $18M one, all Battle Pass owners will will receive a variety of “Immortal Rewards” along with other benefits.
Image courtesy of Valve/Dota 2
With increasing prize pools like these, people are sure to become more attracted to eSports. It’s also fairly safe to say that professional video games are growing at a rate that would surpass any traditional sport.
Numbers show that while NFL is still the most popular spectator sport in the USA, League of Legends and Dota 2 have surpassed the viewer counts of the NBA Finals, World Series, or the BCS National Championship game. In January of 2014, Riot Games announced that League of Legends has 67 million monthly players worldwide. If that seems huge, think about the fact that an estimated 24 million play basketball in the United States, and less than 9 million people play football.
Image courtesy of Valve/Dota 2
The game’s developer, Valve, also announced that over 20 million unique viewers streamed the 2014 International Dota 2 Championship and at peak the tournament had “concurrent viewers over 2 million.” The 2014 Super Bowl “had 115.5 million viewers, though only a hair over 500,000 streamed the event online.”
