$10 Million Dota 2 International Exceeds Super Bowl, Masters, and Tour de France Prizes
The crowd-funded prize pool for the International Dota 2 Championships is the biggest eSports prize pool in history.
The prize pool for this year's International, the championship tournament for Valve's PC multiplayer battle arena game Dota 2, has just crossed the $10 million line. For comparison, this means that the payout to the top teams is now more than the prizes for the 2014 Masters golf tournament, which total a meager $9 million.
This also marks the world record for biggest reward in history for an eSports tournament. It crushes last year's mark of $2.8 million, which was the biggest eSports prize to date. When the Compendium launched in May, its proceeds raised the prize from its initial $1.6 million to $2.2 million in its first night. You can check out some of the other comparable prizes and salaries below (credit to The Verge for the idea):
Valve has collected this much in prize money by crowd-sourcing the pool. People can buy Compendiums which contain in-game items that unlock as the pool increases in amount. At the $10 million mark, owners of the Compendium unlocked the Victory Prediction Taunt for the game.
Each Compendium costs $10 to purchase, and 25% of the proceeds go to the prize pool. This is obviously big business for Valve, and it serves to raise awareness for its game while also bringing in a lot of money.
The International 2014 takes place between July 18-21 in Seattle. It will be held in Seattle's Key Arena, with a seating capacity of 17,000.
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