The past few years have seen an explosion of esports tournaments around the globe. Not only are the tournaments bigger than ever before, players and teams also now battle to take home hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in prize money.
The top video games this year, and tournaments, have been some of the biggest we have ever seen; here are the ones that continue to blow people away.
The International
TI is widely regarded as the premier esports tournament. The best Dota players from around the world all come together at this enormous event to celebrate the game they love and show off their skills.
The tournament boasts an incredible prize pool that is often over $10 million. It’s also one of the most watched tournaments, with viewer numbers peaking at over 2.5 million.
CS:GO Majors
CS:GO has several tournaments that take place throughout the year, but the Majors are arguably the competitions that players want to win the most. The events feature the biggest and best teams around, and are a showcase of a game which is still going strong, despite being the granddaddy of esports.
Prize pools and viewership have also skyrocketed over the years, with the 2023 tournament boasting a prize of $1.25 million.
Valorant Champions
Valorant has quickly risen to the heights of the likes of LoL and CS:GO in the esports world. The two-year-old game may still be relatively new on the scene, but the tournament has already drawn an average viewership of over 1 million people.
With Valorant likely to continue to grow in popularity, it’s only a matter of time before Valorant Champions is whispered in the same reverential tone by esports fans and players as the likes of The International and the Majors.
Call of Duty League
The Call of Duty league is a tournament held over several months that pits the best CoD teams against each other in a league format. Teams fight across a variety of maps and modes, scoring points, and hopefully getting to the finals.
Tournament-style Call of Duty has always been a big deal, but it’s recently seen a spike in popularity due to organizations such as FaZe and 100 Thieves entering the fray.
Six Invitational
Rainbow Six Siege may not be as popular as titles such as CoD and CS:GO, but for R6 squads, the Six Invitational is the one to win to prove your worth on the Siege scene. Ubisoft hosts the tournament, which has been the stage for some of the most exciting FPS and esports moments in gaming history.
Viewership often peaks at around 300,000, but the $3 million prize pool shows that R6 can still hang with the big boys of gaming.
League of Legends World Championship
If you don’t think TI is the biggest tournament around, you most likely think Worlds is. The LoL Worlds tournament has been a benchmark that many others have tried to reach for a few years now, and it has the numbers to back it up.
The prize pool for the tournament is close to the $7 million mark at this point, but the viewership shows how immense the tournament is. Peak viewership often exceeds the 4 million mark, with over 174 million hours of gameplay watched around the world.
World Series of Warzone
World Series of Warzone is very much still in its infancy, but it’s already become a favorite amongst esports fans. Competitions are held in both the US and Europe, with the prize pool sitting at a cool $300,000.
While the numbers may still be low, the release of Warzone 2 in the near future is set to take the competition to the next level.
Evo
Fighting game tournaments are often seen as small, niche competitions in the esports world; however, Evo very much bucks that trend, and is held in very high regard throughout the esports community. The tournament features a multitude of titles across the fighting-game spectrum, rather than centering on just one particular game.
Titles such as Tekken, Super Smash Bros., and, of course, Street Fighter have all been featured, with the 2022 iteration of the tourney showcasing close to 7,500 of the world’s best players. The prize pot may be small compared with others on this list, but winning Evo is still the highpoint of any pro gamer’s career.
