The total prize money distributed to Dota 2 teams has risen in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the previous year. If you count all tournaments finishing within Q1/2013, $130,315 were earned in the competitive scene just by tournament placements. Compared to the $30,640 from Q1/2012, that is a rise of +325%, so the prize money distributed in this part of the year has more than quadrupled.
The top 3 positions in the prize money rankings are taken by iG, Virtus.Pro and dignitas. The three teams have won the G-League, The Defense and the RitMix Russian Dota 2 League respectively. Tied for third place is also the international squad of LGD.
Prize Money by Team Q1/2013 - Top 10 | |
Team | USD-eq. |
iG | $32,000 |
Virtus.Pro | $14,500 |
dignitas | $8,500 |
LGD.int | $8,500 |
Empire | $8,200 |
fnatic | $6,600 |
ABC | $6,000 |
Team Liquid | $5,500 |
Na'Vi | $5,220 |
NoTidehunter | $4,000 |
Total | $130,315 |
Teams iG, Virtus.Pro and LGD.int are also among the top single prize money winners. The offline final of G-League in Shanghai early March with it's RMB 250,000 was dominating the prize money of the first quarter of the year, but only accounted for about one third of the total prize money gained. Other big tournaments, prize money wise, were the online tournaments The Defense, the Armaggeddon Grand Slam in Singapore and the Techlabs Cup in Moscow.
Biggest single prize money wins in Q1/2013:
1st iG, G-League, Shanghai: RMB200,000
2nd Virtus.Pro, The Defense, Online: $10,000
3rd LGD.int G-League, Shanghai: RMB50,000
4th ABC, Armaggeddon Grand Slam, Singapore: $5,000
4th Empire, Techlabs Cup, Moscow: $5,000
4th fnatic, The Defense, Online: $5,000
The Russian team Virtus.Pro has not only achieved second place in the Q1-ranking by winning The Defense, the gap between them and their pursuers has been widened by the record of eight total instances of finishing a tournament or league within the prize money positions. The most diligent prize money collectors are all western Dota 2 teams: After Virtus.Pro come TeamLiquid and NoTidehunter with six prize money finishes and fnatic as well as Na'Vi with five of them. Only then comes Neolution Orange with a number of 4 sources for their $2,800 prize money gain.
Overall, 42 teams appear in the prize money rankings, from the first place $32,000 down to $100. On average, these teams earned $3026 within a quarter of a year per team. Only ten of these teams have finished the quarter above the average.
The upcoming second quarter of the year is expected to beat the first quarter concerning prize money. In April alone there will be two European offline finals in Kiev for the StarLadder StarSeries ($15,000 for four teams) and in Katowice for the EMS One ($35,000 for eight teams). During the other two weekends in April, the online tournaments D2L and TPL will find their end, both handing out prize money of $10,000 each. All four of these tournaments had their preliminary, non-prize money rounds in the first quarter of the year, but were not counted towards the Q1-ranking.
Explanation USD-eq.: Means "US Dollar Equivalent", to make different currencies comparable.
Conversion rates: 1 EUR = 1.28 USD-eq., 1 USD = 1 USD-eq., 1 SEK = 0.15 USD-eq., 1 RMB = 0.16 USD-eq., 1 TL = 0.55 USD-eq., 1 GBP = 1.51 USD-eq.