Around eSport-competitions, as well as around the traditional sports disciplines, an entire industry has emerged, including the sale of equipment (mice, headsets, pads, video cards) and clothing, paraphernalia, advertising, broadcast, etc. In 2020, the revenues of this market passed $1 billion, and in 2023 it is, according to the most conservative forecasts, will exceed $1.5 billion.
However, viewers, as a rule, are not interested in the income of companies-promoters and manufacturers of souvenirs, they are more interested in who among the players earns more. Well, let’s talk about the most profitable export disciplines for players.
CS: GO in Professional eSports
CS: GO is the most successful game, judging by the size of prize money and the number of tournaments. Immediately after the release of Valve was criticized for limiting the size of the prize fund for major CS GO tournaments to the $250 thousand on the background of millions of prizes in Dota 2, so beginning with the MLG Major CS championships: Columbus 2016 sum climbed to $ 1 million and above. The biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive champs are held by the same World Electronic Sports Games – $1.5 million, ELEAGUE – $1 million or more, Star Ladder, and others.
Unlike Dota 2, which is extremely popular in China, South Korea, and other East Asian countries, the best teams, the strongest players and most fans of the game are in Europe.
ESL Major Series One
Since its inception, the tournament held five tournaments in the CS GO discipline and if the first four tournaments had the same $250,000 prize pool, the fifth tournament, held in July this year, the organizers collected a prize of $100,000. The tournament was twice held in Katowice, NiP reached the finals twice and twice lost to their opponent. The first time in Poland, VP took the tournament largely due to the support of the audience, and the second time Fnatic was triumphant.
The second city where the ESL tournament was held was Cologne. Three times the German city gathered the 16 strongest teams in the world and the first tournament was notable for NiP winning it, beating Fnatic in the finals. However, the following year NiP was not in the finals, while Fnatic not only played in the finals but won it, leaving behind EnVyUs. The last ESL tournament was held this year. This time, for the first place in the tournament with a prize pool of one million dollars, competed against very different teams – SK and Liquid. The Brazilian team was stronger and retained first place for several months.
Top 5 CS Championships 2022:
- IEM XVII Cologne: July 5th – 17th, 2022.
- ESL DH Melbourne: September 2nd, 2022
- ESL DH Rotterdam: October 14th, 2022
- ESL DH Hyderabad: October 29th, 2022
- ESL DH Madrid: December 9th, 2022
CS: GO World Main Event
There are a huge number of tournaments per year, but there are hardly even a dozen really big, interesting, and eye-catching ones, but those are the tournaments that are worth a few and we will talk about them in more detail. The biggest tournaments that offer the most interesting list of teams and impressive prize pool are called Major tournaments. Usually, such tournaments are held at a certain time every year and in a certain place, and the well-known DreamHack also belongs to that list.
Conclusion
In 2022, we will see the inevitable return of BLAST Premier tournaments 2022. Along with the ESL Pro Tour, the BLAST Premier series of tournaments is the backbone of the entire CSGO eSport. There are typically five or six major BLAST Premier tournaments throughout the year, culminating with the BLAST Premier World Finals.
Ultimately, tracking down the best CSGO tournaments of any year is pretty easy. If you’re looking for terms like IEM, ESL, and BLAST, you can’t go wrong. These are the hottest and most popular CSGO tournaments in the world, and they boast the biggest prize pools.