Dota 2’s The International has once again trumped itself by having an even more enormous prize pool than last year. For the past 4 years, The International has broken its own prize pool record every single time and it’s not any different this year around.
The reason that The Internation is able to have such a gigantic prize pool is that the majority of that money comes through the players. Every year, Dota 2 players can purchase a Battle Pass which gives players access to a large variety of different features to enjoy during the summer period. However, purchasing a Battle Pass directly contributes to The International. It’s basically a crowdfunding campaign although people that contribute get something in return as well.
It’s official, this #ti8 is the largest single prize pool esports tournament of all time. pic.twitter.com/tgzDn9I44u
— Redeye (@PaulChaloner) August 20, 2018
After the crowdfunding period ended the final number stopped at a total of $24,787,916 for which professional players will be duking it out in TI7. Once again this is a landmark figure and the highest that esports has ever seen so far. It also shouldn’t be surprising that year after year The International ranks as the number 1
Despite the crowdfunding period having ended, players can still contribute some more cash for the cause. This is not attached to any Battle Pass incentives so it’s very unlikely that we will the number rise by a massive amount beyond this point.
Other esports tournaments could definitely learn a thing or two from Dota’s The International. Although the quality of these tournaments is nowadays mostly the same across all games, Dota 2 is still the clear leader when it comes to prize pools. The Dota community has already they showed that they are more than willing to contribute to the tournament as long as there are incentives for them attached to it. If other esports like League of Legends or Overwatch want to increase their prize pools they might have to look into adopting a similar system.
