Esports Finance 2025: How Much Do Dota 2 Teams Earn?
When you hear the numbers for the prize pools of the major events this year, it can be a bit dizzying. Just look at The International with its $1,600,000 or Riyadh with $1,000,000 to 1st place. But in practice, not all of this money will go to the winning team. And not every team will make it to the finals and first place.
If you’re interested in knowing the approximate figure right now, you can look it up on https://getesports.net/en/dota-2-teams. However, if you’re interested in understanding how much Dota 2 teams actually earn and what their earnings consist of, I’ll go into detail about that.
What Does a Dota 2 Team’s Income Consist of?
Of course, the team receives income not only from participation in tournaments. There are several sources of income, which together make up the amount I am talking about. Most common are:
- Prize money. Prize money can make up almost half of a team’s income. That is, of course, if the team advances well enough to win a prize. Tier 1 competitions often have prize pools in the $1 million range, like BLAST Slam. Lower-level competitions typically offer $70,000 – $100,000. These winnings are split between the team depending on the terms of their contract, but usually 10-20% to the org, 80-90% to the players.
- Brand deals. The second largest source of income for teams is contracts with sponsors and brands. These can include filming commercials with members or, for example, branding uniforms at major events. The most frequent sponsors are betting companies, energy drinks, and hardware manufacturers.
- Merchandise. Teams that grow their fan base enough start making money on merchandise. This can be T-shirts, hoodies, and many other items.
- Revenue from Valve. Valve shares revenue from Team stickers, sprays, loading screens, voice packs during and after tournaments, as well as from Battle Pass-related sales.
- Content creation. In addition to participating in events, teams create their own content and earn money from it on social networks. This includes streams on platforms like Twitch, videos on YouTube, etc. The main income is revenue from advertising, donations, and sponsored streams.
Statistically, though very roughly, all this makes up the team’s earnings. In many ways, the amount of income will depend not only on the number of victories but on the popularity of the team itself.
| The source of income | % of Total Income |
| Prize money | ~40-50% |
| Sponsorships | ~30-40% |
| Merchandise | ~3-5% |
| Revenue from Valve | ~5-10% |
| Content and streams | ~2-5% |
The Prize Pools in 2025
Let’s take a look at the amounts that Tier 1 competition winners can expect to earn in 2025:
- The International 2025: $1,600,000.
- Esports World Cup (Riyadh Masters): $1,000,000 for 1st place. $500k for 2nd, $300k for 3rd, and structured payouts down to $50k for lower placements
- DreamLeague: $1,000,000.
- BLAST Slam & FISSURE Playground Events: $1,000,000 for each event.
As for the latest prize pools in Tier 2 tournaments, they were:
- FISSURE Universe Episodes: $250,000.
- Asian Champions League 2025: $150,000.
- FISSURE Special: $70,000.
Top 5 Earning Teams in 2025
According to recent calculations, the Top 5 earning teams in 2025 are:
- Team Liquid: ~$30–35 million total prize money
- OG: ~$35–38 million (cumulative, portion in 2025)
- Team Spirit: ~$28–30 million cumulative
- Evil Geniuses: around $22–22.2 million
- Team Secret: ~$18.7–18.8 million
Of course, these are just the starting numbers, because there is still the International and a whole series of tournaments ahead. Although Riyadh has already made a fairly large contribution.
Teams like Tundra are also gaining popularity and showing themselves well at recent events, which may allow them to get closer to the top positions this year. With Valve’s prize pool changing this year, many teams are focusing on additional tournaments and personal content to adapt to the new reality of Dota 2.
In addition to the overall team income, there is also the personal income of the players, although it is closely linked to the success of the entire team. Just for comparison, the top 5 most successful players of this season:
- Johan “N0tail” Sundstein with total earnings of ~$7.2 million.
- Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka with around $6.5 million of total earnings.
- Anathan “ana” Pham with total earnings of ~$6.0 million.
- Sébastien “Ceb” Debs with around $5.9 million of total earnings.
- Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen with total earnings of ~$5.8 million.
All of them are members of the OG team.