The eSports industry is big and it’s growing at an enormous rate. Here are some numbers to wrap your mind around:
- Global Esports revenue is estimated at $612 Million in 2015
- League of Legends generated $1 Billion in 2014
- Esports is expected to grow at a rate of 30% in the next 5 years
But if you really want to get a sense of how big the Esports industry is growing and evolving you need to take a look at the biggest Esports Championships and Tournaments held throughout the world. The list below are tournaments played throughout the world in huge stadiums such as the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Madison Square Garden in New York, London England’s Royal Opera House, KeyArena in Seattle, Twickenham Stadium in England and Seoul Korea’s 2002 World Cup soccer stadium. In fact, Seoul is having a new eSports stadium built to comply with the demand.
Check out our Best Fantasy Esports Sites to play all of these games mentioned below
Here are the biggest Esports Championships to date:
The International Dota 2 Championships
In 2015, the International DOTA 2 Championships again was the biggest tournament in the world hosted at the KeyArena in Seattle and offering a total prize pool of over $18 Million with 1st place walking away with $6.6 Million.
Who Won in 2015 – Team Evil Geniuses from San Francisco
Prize Money – $6,616,014
Fantasy Esports Sites That Offer Dota 2
The Dota 2 Asia Championships
Also called the DAC 2015 and The Oriental is a tournament run by Perfect World and MarsTV. Like the International, DAC has similar qualifiers and players but is held in Asia. The prize money was over $3 Million in 2015 and we expect this to undoubtedly grow in 2016 and beyond.
Who Won in 2015 – Team Evil Geniuses from San Francisco
Prize Money – $1,284,158
Fantasy Esports Sites That Offer Dota 2
The League of Legends World Championship
A grand Prize of $1 Million heads to the winners of the LoL World Championship. Made up of qualifiers from the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) the World Championship is a multi-city, multi-country event. It is fair to say this is the most popular Esports Championship in the world right now.
Who Won in 2015 – SKTelecom T1 from Korea
Prize Money – $1,000,000
Fantasy Esports Sites That Offer League of Legends
Call of Duty Championship
The Call of Duty Championship game changes based on which version of CoD is out on the market. The 2016 Call of Duty Championship will be held in the fall instead of the spring to allow for players to learn and perfect the Call of Duty Black Ops III being released in the late fall of 2015. A total prize pool of $3 Million will be up for grabs.
Who Won in 2015 – Denial eSports from USA
Prize Money – $400,000
Fantasy Esports Sites That Offer Call of Duty
Smite World Championship
Is held at the beginning of the year and the 2016 Smite World Championship presented by XBOX 1 will once again be a huge draw. In 2015, the Championship was actually be made up of two tournaments: The Smite PC World Championship and the Smite Xbox One Invitational.
Who Won in 2015 – Cognitive Prime from USA
Prize Money – $1,300,000
Fantasy Esports Sites That Offer Smite
The Battle.net World Championship Series
It is also called the StarCraft II World Championship Series which is run by Blizzard Entertainment is a series of video game tournaments for the games StarCraft II (SC2), World of Warcraft (WoW), and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
Who Won in 2015 – TBA November 2015
The Evolution Championship Series
EVO or Evo is an annual eSports tournament that began in its current form in 2002. They tourney focusses on fighting games such as Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 and brings players from around the world. It is the longest-running fighting game tournament in the world and is held during the summer.