The Economics of eSports. Who Earns What?

Overall, eSports is as lucrative as any ball-based sport, with prize funds increasing with each passing year.

14:11 20 October 2021

Like it or not, some people earn every penny they have from your daily pilgrimage to the internet. This can manifest in tens of different ways, ranging from subscriptions via Patreon and Twitch, to direct donations, all the way to more traditional means of earning money like advertising revenue and actual wages. All this sets up the internet career as a bit of a fleeting, fragile choice of vocation. Too many dropped subscribers and it might be time to go back to the local Starbucks.

 

Of course, money can be one of the most important metrics when it comes to measuring success, simply because acquiring the latter isn’t always as simple as finding a golden crown to wear on one’s head. So, let’s take a look at some sample professions that only became a reality due to the appearance of the internet, and see how much money is really out there for the most popular personalities. Obviously, all figures are estimates of averages, as snooping is still illegal. 

 

Let’s start with streamers of the multiplayer battle game League of Legends. Win.gg, an eSports news hub, recently published an article about streamers Faker, Tyler1, and Imaqtpi (among others) which can be found if you click here. The piece details a recent leak of their various incomes, albeit without non-Twitch sources such as prize money, Patreon, and many other things. Tyler Steincamp, or tyler1, tops the leaderboard with an incredible $2,490,585, compared to Imaqtpi $809,976.

 

Dota 2

Oddly enough, League of Legends pro Faker doesn’t really compete on that particular leaderboard, with Twitch income at $24,000. Faker gets most of his cash from prize money and regular sponsors like Samsung. Based on this example alone, two personalities occupying the same space can have drastically different sources of income. Indeed, YouTube channels that lose monetization capabilities, such as by covering crime or war, usually head to Patreon for an income, instead.

 

Professional players in the eSports space generally earn more if they are Dota 2 players. To put that comment into perspective, only three people in the top forty highest earners list get most of their cash from different games, namely, Fortnite (#22 Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf and #39 Harrison "psalm" Chang) and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (#40 Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen). While there are a number of reasons for the dominance of Dota 2, it’s by far one of the oldest and most well-supported eSports game out there.

 

So, on to the numbers. Johan “N0tail” Sundstein is one of the most well-paid eSports players in the world, taking home a grand total of $7,183,917, almost a full million dollars more than second-placed Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka. Once again, these figures aren’t exhaustive as they only account for prize money won in eSports competition. Almost all of the people mentioned will receive sponsorship fees and perhaps even wages depending on who they happen to be affiliate in the competitive circuit. 

 

Overall, eSports is as lucrative as any ball-based sport, with prize funds increasing with each passing year.