Top 5 Highest Earning Esports Teams Of All Time!

Over the past 10 years the esports industry has quickly risen in popularity, titles and of course – Prize money. I remember going to a large CSGO event in England 10 years ago with the prize pool being around £500 and the very fact that there was money on the table at all was enough to attract a crowd from all over the country.

Nowadays, the prize pools are sky high with some tournaments easily clearing the $1,000,000 mark. With all of this money up for grabs it begs the question – Who has earned the most? Which team has taken home the most bacon over the many years that our favourite competitive industry has been growing? Let’s find out.

In this blog post we are going to be looking at the top 5 most highly earning eSports teams – Ever.

Let’s get into it.

Number 5 – Team Newbee – $13.967.192.62

Primarily a Dota 2 team, Newbee makes it to number 5 on our list with over 90% of their total earnings coming from their domination over the Dota 2 tournament scene. Of that total amount, over $1.3million found its way into the pocket of their player Kaka – their highest earning player from China.

Number 4 – Team Fnatic – $14.156.872.37

Fnatic is without a doubt one of the largest names in eSports so it comes as no surprise that they achieve a top 5 position in this list. An incredibly diverse roster bringing in around an equal 30% of their prize money from both CSGO and Dota 2, they really do know how to play AND win tournaments in any genre of game. Of the fourteen and something million dollars, JW tops the list as their biggest individual earner at the huge some of $744.802.35. Thats enough money to buy nearly 30,000 people a subscription to LootBear Pro. If only he were so generous.

Number 3 – Evil Geniuses – $22.845.565.11

With a difference of over $8,000,000 between number 4 and our first top 3 team, Evil Geniuses, it’s no wonder they have such an insanely huge fanbase. As with number 5, this team is primarily a Dota 2 team owing around 85% of their total bank balance to the popular MOBA.

The incredible gap between prize money across these teams is not the only huge gap. Evil Geniuses top player SumaiL has pocketed over $3.5 million dollars all to himself. That’s over 3 times as much cash as the number one player from Fnatic. Insane.

Number 2 – Team OG – $33.410.175.00

If you thought the jump between 3 and 4 was big, what do you think about this one? With over $10,000,00 separating Team OG from the team in third position they are very safely in the top 2 eSports teams in terms of monetary gain in the world.

Now, many of you will probably recognise Team OG for their incredible career in the arena of Dota 2. BUT do not be fooled. That is not their only source of income.

Team OG has earned a staggering $6,323 and 12 cents from Super Smash Bro’s tournaments as well! Equalling 0.02% of their total earnings. Ca-ray-zay!

Team OG’s top earning play N0tail from Denmark has racked in over $6.6 million in prize money which by my calculations might just about afford you a coffee and an outdated Gossip magazine in Denmark.

Number 1 – Team Liquid – $33.761.635.16

Without a doubt one of the most highly recognised names in all of eSports – Team Liquid takes the top spot. But only by a lead of around $350,000.

Team Liquids’ top earning player – MinD_ContRoL has taken home around $4.4 million of this to spend on hoo-… lovely things for his family and friends.

The craziest thing about these top 2 competitors is the incredible difference in the number of events they owe their total earnings to

Team Liquid – $33,761,635,16 from 1606 tournaments
Team OG – $33.410.175.00 from ONLY 68 tournaments.

Team Liquid has competed in well over 1500 more tournaments than Team OG and is only barely beating them in total earnings.

To put this in perspective, Team OG’s average earning per tournament (Total prize money divided by the number of events) equals out at $491,326.

If Team OG had been involved in the same number of tournaments as Team Liquid whilst maintaining this average earning amount, they would have earned a total of $7,643,957 455,19.

THAT IS OVER SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS.

Conclusion

The gaming and esports industry has overtaken the movie industry in value over the past few years and so numbers like these should come as no shock. Especially when you consider the salary of some of the top movie stars in Hollywood.

If anything, we can expect to see these numbers grow exponentially in the years to come. Professional gamers are quickly becoming the heroes of our younger generation, much like famous Footballers or athletes were to us when we were younger.

I am proud of where our industry is going and I feel blessed to be able to be a part of this industry with the rest of our team here at LootBear. We strive to create a platform that allows everyone out there to experience their game to the fullest – With no skin out of reach for anyone. Thank you for taking the time to read our blog post and if you haven’t already…

Make sure to treat yourself to 8 days of LootBear Prime on us, totally free, by signing up to our free trial.