When professional competitions in Counter Strike Global Offensive, one of the biggest video games, emerged a few years ago, the prize pools for these tournaments were small. However, the size of the prize pools in professional CS:GO tournaments has been growing steadily over the years. The main reason for this trend is the large number of corporations that are willing to sponsor such competitions as a marketing strategy. Similarly, the number of viewers, which is another important indicator of the significance of the tournaments, has been increasing steadily. In this blog post, we cover some of the largest tournaments in CS:GO based on the sizes of the prize pools.
What are CS:GO Tournaments?
CS:GO tournaments are a type of esports competition in which professional players of Counter Strike Global Offensive compete against each other for various prizes. The competitions typically require players to participate in the matches in teams.
CS:GO tournaments take place in various forms. The most popular one is the major championships which started taking place in 2013. The major championships entail 24 teams from different countries in the world competing for various prize sizes.
The second form of CS:GO tournaments are referred to as the S-Tier events. These competitions take place in various countries in the world every year. The tournaments are important in the industry because they usually attract some of the best players in the world. Besides, the monetary rewards in S-Tier events are typically as high as those for the major championships.
The Top CS:GO Tournaments with the Highest Prize Pools
If you search for any credible list of latest CS:GO gambling sites in 2023, you will find platforms that let customers place bets on the outcomes of professional CS:GO matches. Some of these matches are part of the best tournaments which take place in different regions in the world. However, the CS:GO betting websites do not necessarily provide information about the prize pools of the competitions. Interestingly, the cumulative prize pool of CS:GO tournaments in the world is expected to reach US45.6 million in 2023. Here are some of the top tournaments with the highest prize pools.
The PGL Stockholm Major
This remains one of the greatest CS:GO major tournaments in the world because of the size of the prize pool and the number of fans who watched it. The tournament had a prize pool of $2 million. This prize money was shared by sixteen teams drawn from around the world. The teams contained some of the most accomplished players of the game. The winning team received $1million while the other 15 teams shared the remaining $1 million.
BLAST Premier
This S-Tier event took place in Denmark in 2021. It is still regarded as one of the biggest S-Tier tournaments because of the quality of the teams that participated and the size of the prize pool. Eight leading teams battled it out for the prize money by taking part in all the CS:GO activities, including deathmatch, demolition, and competitive. The total prize pool for the 2021 version of BLAST premier was $1 million.
The World Electronics Sports Game
This is an annual event that attracts some of the most popular CS:GO teams. The 2018 version of this major tournament took place in China and had a prize pool of $1.5 million. A similar amount of money was up for grabs during the 2017 version of this major CS:GO tournament. Many corporate brands around the world typically sponsor the World Electronics Sports Game, thus the relatively large size of the monetary rewards to the winners.
V4 Future Sports Festival 2021
The V4 Future Sports Festival is one of the most popular A-Tier events in CS:GO competitions. A-Tier events are different from S-Tier and major championships because of the size of the prize pool and the nature of the competitions. A-Tier events usually have relatively smaller prize pools than the S-Tier ones and major championships. Moreover, the qualifying process in A-Tier events may differ drastically from what is used in S-Tier ones and major championships.
The 2021 edition of the V4 Future Sports Festival took place in Budapest, Hungary. The teams that participated in the tournament were selected from several minor competitions that had taken place prior to the festival. The event had a cash prize pool of approximately $340,000. The winning team took home roughly $170,000.
E-League CS:GO Premier 2017
As the viewership and the size of prize money involved in CS:GO tournaments continued to grow in the past few years, many other competitions started emerging. One of the competitions that arose relatively recently but has now grown into a major event is the E-League CS:GO Premier. This event first took place in 2017 in Atlanta, USA. This competition, which attracted sixteen teams, had a prize pool of $1 million. As it is always the norm in major championships, the winning team took half of the prize money while the rest was distributed among the remaining fifteen teams.
FACEIT Major 2018
The FACEIT Major CS:GO competition took place in London in 2018. All leading teams from different countries in the world participated in this major tournament. The total prize pool was $1 million and the team that won the competition, Astralis’, walked away with half the money.
Conclusion
Counter Strike Global Offensive will continue growing in popularity in the future. Besides, the number of important professional tournaments will increase as more sponsors and other supporters keep organizing them and invite leading teams from all over the world. There have been major events in the game that took place a couple of years ago. These events, some of which are part of a series of annual competitions, continue to take place at different venues. Their defining characteristic is the huge sizes of the prize pools that the teams compete for. Major championships typically attract the best teams because they have the largest sizes of prize pools. S-Tier and A-Tier events are also important CS:GO tournaments because of the viewership and prize pools.
