The International 2019 prize pool distribution revealed – And it’s not what we were expecting!

Dota 2

August 9, 2019

Radu Muresan

The prize pool distribution for The International 2019 tournament has been revealed and the percentages are both reassuring and controversial. Reassuring for the lower placed teams, who will be making more than three times as much as last year. And controversial with regards to the 1^st place, simply because the difference between the 1^st and the 2^nd place teams is more than what everyone had imagined: over 10 million dollars.

Read Also: TI 9 prize pool breaks the $30 million barrier

The International 2019 Prize Pool

The TI9 prize pool is absolutely massive at this point: over $32 million. It has already broken every esports record and the final number will probably reach $33 million, which is $7,5 million more than in 2018. This whole season was a big success on Valve’s part. It also showed that the community is here to stay and more involved than ever.

Over 10 million active players take part in Dota 2 matches every month. Last year, after TI8, people were expecting the game to go start going on a downward trend. But in spite of all the issues, millions of people across the globe are still in love with Dota 2. And in recent months, we’ve actually seen the number grow by a few hundred thousand.

The International 2019 Prize Distribution

The distribution of TI9’s prize pool clearly favors the lower placed teams and the winner of the tournament. Regarding the first part, I totally agree with Valve’s decision to radically improve the earnings of the lesser teams. Having an event with such a massive prize pool and sending people home with just $100.000 is definitely not a balanced way of doing things.

This year, the winner of The International will receive close to $15 million. The 17^th – 18^th place teams will only get $80.000. But the 13^th – 16^th place teams will get close to $500.000. To put this in perspective, the winner of a Dota Pro Circuit Major wins $350.000. So the amount is absolutely massive and is a way of guaranteeing that anyone who has qualified for the tournament, apart from the worst two teams, will get a massive amount of money. Or enough to continue to do this professionally until next year.

With such huge prizes on the line and such a passionate community, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more people take a stab at playing professionally in the years to come. And keep in mind that the scene is full of veterans who are pushing 30. Pretty soon, some of them will simply retire and make room for younger competitors to arrive on the scene.

At the time of this writing, the full prize pool distribution for The International 2019 is the following: