Top 10 Biggest Esports Competitions

Until the invention of the Internet, people mostly relied on traditional sports to entertain them; however, today, esports threaten to completely take the spotlight in entertainment. This branch of the entertainment industry is growing in popularity, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore its quick expansion.

What are esports?

The name refers to competitive video games playing, which has been around for more than 40 years, in one form or another. However, it was not until recently that esports began to gather attention to the extent that they threaten regular sports tournaments. The International Dota 2 tournament in 2019 had a prize pool of almost 35 million dollars, and there are even more that attract many viewers and competitors, due to their large prizes. Here are some of the biggest esports competitions in the world that can rival regular sports tournaments.

  1. The Fortnite World Cup

This is by far the most famous and anticipated event of the sort, with the biggest prize pool of all, reaching a whopping $100 million in 2019, which is the largest prize pool for any esports event so far.

  1. League of Legends World Championship

This event, organized by Riot Games, is the largest competition when it comes to this game. League of Legends managed to never lose its popularity over the years.  Although the prize amount is not as large as the previous entry on this list, $2.25 million is still not negligible.

  1. The International

This tournament, based in Shanghai in China, is dedicated to DOTA 2, and it is one of the biggest events in the world. The 2019 prize pool was already mentioned, but it is also worth mentioning that it has grown by $9 million since 2018, and we can expect this trend to continue further.

  1. Call of Duty World League

This tournament is hosted by Activision, the company that published the game, and the game is played in a 5v5 format, with a prize of $6 million.

  1. IEM

The Intel Extreme Masters tournament is the largest event for playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and it is held annually by Valve Corporation

  1. The Overwatch League

Although not as popular as some other games on this list, Overwatch still manages to attract lots of people to his tournament; 20 teams compete for the prize of $5 million.

  1. HALO World Championship

This tournament is organized by Microsoft, with a prize pool of $1 million.

  1. PUBG Global Championship

This is the largest event for PUBG players in the world, organized by PUBG Corp, with the prize being more than $2 million.

  1. Fortnite Secret Skirmish

This is a series presented by the developers of Fortnite, with the idea of interspersing smaller events between Fortnite World Cups. This event, though brief, has a prize pool of $500,000.

  1. Dota 2 Asia Championships

Also known as DAC, this regional event, set in Shanghai, had the prize pool of $1 million in 2018.