In 2017, there were 74 deals (the majority from angel and venture capital investors) worth $1.52 billion involving esports companies, according to PitchBook, up from six deals worth $34. On June 10, 2021, FaZe Clan became the first esports team to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The deal also saw them snap up OpTics LCS spot, which will be rebranded to Immortals, and operate the Los Angeles Valiant OWL team and the MiBR CS:GO squad. They sponsored a Dutch StarCraft: Brood War team in 2010. Cloud9 Cloud9 was the first and only North American team to win a CounterStrike: Global Offensive Major in 2018. NRG has a successful content business, including a studio in Los Angeles, where the company is based, and a brand in Full Squad Gaming that targets social gamers as opposed to esports enthusiasts. FaZe Clan also plays Rainbow Six Siege, COD: WWII, and Valorant, and are the 2021 Call of Duty League Champions. But its bottom line is still ugly, the SPAC climate has grown more perilous, and the companys recently disclosed agreement with partner Snoop Dogg suggests it might be lowering its own valuation. 7 on the list. Team Liquid (Valued $320 million)1. A mere $92M. Cover image by Woohae Cho. That is already starting to pay off. League operations during the pandemic was instrumental in making sure the North American esports scene remained relevant. Red Bull 2. Last year there was approximately $240M up for grabs in esports prize pool winnings. Cloud 9 sit top of the tree with an estimated value of $400 million, and $29 million in revenue. Natus Vincere 7. Activision Blizzard began selling franchises for $20 million for its Overwatch League around the same time. Team Spirit 5. This organizations prize pool money is directly tied to the. Sponsorships help too. Esports revenues will grow 38% this year, to $906 million, and reach $1.65 billion by 2021. The deal could pump new resources into Activisions esports leaguesor esports could become an afterthought in Microsofts massive budget. Team SoloMid has topped . The Dallas Cowboys are easily the most valuable sports franchise in the world. Fnatic (Valued $175 million)6. The manager for the team is Nimish "Nemo" Raut and the CEO for the team is Wouter Sleijffers. 100 Thieves emerged as the second-most valuable esports company with a $460 million valuation. Evil Geniuses is a subsidiary of GoodGame Agency, owned by Amazons Twitch division. The influence of sports on business and culture. Viewers of certain streams may donate money to their favorite players. When FaZe Clan, the esports and entertainment company with a rock-star image and a cavalcade of celebrity partners, revealed in October that it planned to go public through a SPAC merger, the announcement came with a bold claim: that FaZe was already worth $650 million and would reach $1 billion with the money it raised in the deal. Let's take a look at the highest-earning individual players along with the top teams that are raking in big bucks. That is why eSports players stream as well. Michal Konkol/Riot Games Inc. via Getty Images. Many esports companies raised capital based on inflated expectations of how the market will come together, particularly in the U.S., says Jens Hilgers, founding general partner of esports investor Bitkraft Ventures and co-owner of G2 Esports, which ranks No. The vast majority of companies are cash-flow (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) negative as they continue to spend money to build their rosters and brands. You are here: FaZe now boasts over 230 million followers across all its related social platforms and is worth $305 million to rank No. In 2020, 12 organizations who stumped up $25 million dollars will compete in the first season of the franchised Call of Duty League, while many have already paid millions in buy-ins to other franchised competitions like the Overwatch League and the LCS. The Dallas Empire are the winners of the inaugural season of Activision Blizzards Call of Duty League. eSport Roster Positions Roster Titles; League of Legends: 5: . 1 seed for playoffs, having accumulated the most points during regular season competition. Defenders of the Los Angeles-based FaZe offer a reminder that Amazon hemorrhaged money for years before turning a profit, and even its skeptics recognize that a rising tide lifts all boats. If you are not already interested in electronic gaming, you may be surprised by just how big an industry eSports now is. League of Legends also made up a large portion of the organizations 2020 winnings, with Fnatic taking home $214K, with $101K of that coming from its 5th-8th finish at the World Championships. Invictus Gaming burst onto the scene in 2011 with its win of the 2011 World Cyber Games. Soon after, Quickens Rocket Mortgage came along with a seven-figure sponsorship and branded itself around the companys seven-bedroom mansion in Venice, California. The team finished second at The International 2014. Last month, the company opened the Castle, a funhouse, gamers version of a fraternity house and production studio to churn out digital content that can be sold to sponsors. The No. Another team steeped in esports history, FaZe Clan started life as a Call of Duty sniper team, but now operate teams in the franchise CoD League and CS:GO, and are home to some of the biggest Fortnite streamers and professional players in the world. 100 Thieves Estimated Value: $190 million Richest Esports Organizations 100 Thieves, LLC is an American lifestyle brand and gaming organization based in Los Angeles, California. Over time, the team changed the games they played. All Rights Reserved. gfinity.net. When compared to traditional sports valuations, esports companies have already reached major league hockey status. This is a BETA experience. League Championships were the big money drivers in 2020 and did esports a great service by finding ways to keep the esports competitive scene moving. Cloud9 recently announced a major apparel partnership with Puma, releasing their first collection in October 2019. Dota2, in particular, appears to be where most of the money is nowadays.Cumulative prizes for Dota 2 nearly reached $50 million in 2021. Carolina Panthers founder and first-ever team owner Jerry Richardson died at the age of 86 on Wednesday night. 10 spot. Andy recused himself from any oversight of the scope, nature and conclusions of the investigation. And for Team Secret, Dota 2 is a staple. The top 10 esports companies are worth an average of $353 million, a 46% increase compared to December 2020. Fnatic operate in the European LEC franchised league for League of Legends, and made it all the way to the World Championship finals in 2018 in a losing effort against Invictus Gaming. Newbee is a Chinese e-Sports team. Comcast Xfinity 3. Team Spirit have divisions in Counter Strike: Global Offensive (2016), Dota 2 (2015), Hearthstone (2016) and League of Legends (2022). Aster match roster is . 13. In 2019, NewZoo estimated the total revenue of the esports market would cross $1.1 billion. Cloud9 finishes second with valuation of US$350m; Team Liquid, Faze Clan and 100 Thieves round out top five. The organization will look to its multi-game approach once again in 2021 with the hopes that more events become available as more tournament organizers become comfortable running live events with the permission of local governments. However, Team Secrets prize winnings are tied to its Dota 2 squad. LGD then created another Dota squad, which they called LGD.int. FaZe Clan (Valued $240 million)3. Mercedes Benz Esports: The Next Big Thing? Those results are pending. According to Newzoo, the number of esports enthusiasts worldwide will reach 165 million in 2018, which translates to year-over-year growth of 15%. Our 12 companies have an average enterprise value of 13 times 2018 estimated sales. sq. Invictus Gaming was launched by businessman Wang Sicong. But while money is pouring into the metaverseFortnite publisher Epic Games announced last month that it had raised $1 billion in funding to support its metaverse initiativethose days are a long ways off, and game makers are in no rush to cede control. The team primarily plays in Dota 2 eSports tournaments, with its total prize money won throughout its. Many consider their Counter-Strike team to be one of the best of all-time, having won three CS: GO Majors. What could go wrong? Indeed the most lucrative game by far is Dota, and variations thereof. Big companies approach teams with bids and contracts when they gain notoriety for their skills and a considerable fan base. Million-dollar sponsorship deals are few and far between right now in esports. This represents a 70% growth in the next four years. Thats rich. G2 Esports sole franchise team competes in League of Legends, and have become one of the biggest names in the game in 2019, winning the Mid-Season Invitational, and landing themselves in the 2019 Worlds Finals. He is also one of the most popular streamers among the fans. US organisation Evil Geniuses have gone on to become one of the biggest names in esports. This is in stark contrast to the $753K the organization took home in 2019, and the $524K in 2018. also made up a large portion of the organizations 2020 winnings, with Fnatic taking home $214K, with $101K of that coming from its 5th-8th finish at the World Championships. Fnatic has also started to gain traction in Japan. LGD Gaming is a Chinese multi-gaming team sponsored by Guizhou Laogandie Food. Lee Aik Soon/Riot Games Inc. via Getty Images, TSM has the richest sponsorship deal in esports, a ten-year, $210 million naming rights agreement with crypto exchange FTX, but its real selling point is its tech businesses: Blitz, an app that trains users in popular video games, and Dyno, which offers a moderation bot for Discord servers. A single tournament can yield hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money, but almost all of it goes to the players. Here is a list of the top 10 eSports teams in 2022. Who is the richest esports player? Revenue figures in our table represent an estimate for 2020 and are separated into competitive gaming and related businesses, based on information provided by the companies. On top of that, talent is getting considerably more expensive, with players of the up-and-coming game Valorant able to demand as much as $30,000 a month, according to industry insiders. Giant companies and wealthy individuals alike have invested in esports, from organizations and teams to tournaments and events. The worry now is that esports companies might be swept up into a metaverse bubble. While many companies are expanding beyond esports, Forbes chose not to consider for this ranking Luminosity Gaming parent Enthusiast Gaming, which derives just 3% of its revenue from esports, according to its filings as a public company. However, the Russia-based esports organization also competes in titles such as. (Joint) Overactive Media (Valued $120 million)13. Numerous individuals from the franchise's past, and some . Teams are also constrained in how they can make their money because they dont own the intellectual property of the games they compete inthey cant, for example, sell a special gun in Call of Duty without the consent of the games publisher, Activision Blizzard. Like traditional sports, esports provides income sources and career opportunities. Riot Games and its League of Legends World Championship along with Activision Blizzards Overwatch and Call of Duty League Championships were the big money drivers in 2020 and did esports a great service by finding ways to keep the esports competitive scene moving. The team gained fame for winning The International 2014 (TI14). Since then it has won more than 100 gold, 170 silver and 220 bronze medals in various eSports tournaments. Page generated in 5.569934845 milliseconds, BetBoom Universe: Episode I - Comics Zone, RLCS 2022-23 - Winter: EU Regional 2 - Winter Cup, RLCS 2022-23 - Winter: NA Regional 2 - Winter Cup. Media rights revenue hasnt caught up with those viewership numbers, in no small part because of a lack of competition, with Twitch and YouTube still the only platforms all that interested in esports content. Gen.G looks set to enter a period of rapid growth; the company says it signed more sponsorships in terms of total deal value in the first quarter of 2022 than in all of 2021, putting it on pace to grow revenue 100% year over year. (Joint) Misfits Gaming (Valued $120 million)11. Its a South Korean team with reach into Seoul, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Team Rankings Highest Overall Team Earnings Highest Single Game Team Earnings Top 100 200 300 400 500 Highest Overall Team Earnings This list represents the top ranking teams in esports who won the most prize money based on tournament results, player transfers and team statements published on the internet. Team Liquid is a professional eSports team founded in the Netherlands in 2000. . Among the hardest hit was Immortals Gaming Club, another Los Angeles-based group, which fell off the list because of a singular focus on competitive gaming. Industry-wide revenue, which was expected to jump 16% to $1.1 billion in 2020, instead fell $150 million after the pandemic canceled most live events, according to industry research group Newzoo. He is also the highest paid eSports player that doesn't play Dota 2, however, he is ranked 41st in overall earnings. Team Liquid Total Prize Money Earned: $42,095,042.45 Using NFTs to sell the in-game digital items known as skins would allow teams to collect a fee if the item was resold, the way that Dapper Labs collects a percentage of any trade of its NBA Top Shot NFTs on the secondary market. Since the start of 2021, G2 has announced apparel deals with Adidas, Ralph Lauren and New Era. Vici Gaming 11. With a background in law enforcement and administration, Kevin uses his learned skill set to get an inside look into the happenings of the esports space. Please enter your username or email address to reset your password. According to their annual report, Cloud9 is now worth an incredible $400 million. match was the catalyst behind the No. At this stage, most are trying to find their way around the maze, with some stuck on a hamster wheel. is an esport that is looking to scale, having added four teams for a total of 20 that will now be competing in the Six Invitational 2021, which Spacestation will obviously be a part of. LGD Gaming 15. Theyre very much Dota 2 specialists. eSports teams tend to have similar components. Much like Virtus.pro, Team Liquid brought home the bulk of its 2020 prize money from CS:GO and Dota 2. Take a look at the diversified winnings with Team Liquids, Team Liquid will look to capitalize on its, Activision Blizzards ability to maintain its. 7 on the list at $175 million, up 6%. The organization have dominated League of Legends in the United States, winning three consecutive splits, and secured three top 4 finishes at the last three Dota 2 The International tournaments. OAKLAND, CA - SEPTEMBER 09: A cosplay actress poses at the 2018 North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Finals between Cloud9 and Team Liquid at ORACLE Arena on September 9, 2018 in Oakland, California. European-based Team OG began as the team Monkey Business, which rebranded in October 2015. Sam and Anne Mathews (son and mother) founded Fnatic in 2004, as they saw the potential future for eSports. Vici Gaming began operations in October 2012. This year? Still, that kind of aggregation doesnt reflect the opportunity in any one esporta fan of League of Legends doesnt necessarily care about Call of Duty, the same way an NFL fan doesnt necessarily watch the NBA. G2 could be positioned for a big payday in 2021 with any sort of return to esports normalcy. In 2016, he also became the vice-chairman and partner of the Oilers Entertainment Group . By 2020, four of the top 10 were valued at more than $300 million. We leaned on PitchBook and other public documents to buttress our reporting. 4. The club was founded in 2015, in Moscow, Russia. For instance, Overwatchs viewership numbers are plummeting, just a few years after companies shelled out $20 million for the initial franchise slots in the Overwatch League; esports insiders believe they would sell for a fraction of that price now. This is the ranking of the Top 5 esports teams in the world according to prize money earned. What is the best eSports team. Total Winnings: $139,418 Signature Legends . Immortals own both OpTic Gaming and MiBR. The world champion team EDward Gaming "only" received around half a million. Ill be rooting for them, says one rival team executive. Spacestation, much like G2, has teams in multiple esports titles winning $5K here, $10K there, that helped to bolster its numbers for 2020. Immortals Gaming Club drops off list as revenues plummet 23%. Perhaps the biggest surprise is despite Fortnite being the name video game of 2018, it doesnt appear anywhere near the top of the high-earning tournament games. If it were negotiating terms now, it would likely fetch an even higher price. 1. Team Secret, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, was able to put together a great year as far as. The deal covers multiple Disney-controlled networks including ESPN, Disney XD and ABC. 10 in 2019. Forbes lists five titles separately as premier games, following the industry consensus that these games are the most important in the current competitive esports landscape: Call of Duty: Vanguard (for the Call of Duty League), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends (for the League Championship Series and its overseas counterparts), Overwatch (for the Overwatch League) and Valorant. The valuations were rooted in actual 2021 performance, with multiples applied to each revenue stream individually and adjusted somewhat to reflect future projections. So who are the big names of eSports? Worth an estimated $210 million, Immortals Gaming Club made headline news in June 2018 when it was announced that they had acquired OpTic Gaming, who will compete for IGC in the 2020 Call of Duty League. Sponsored teams make ads, wear sponsored merch, and share. The net worth for the team is $24,384. After his big win in 2014, Zai's team won 2 tournaments back-to-back and earned around $1.2 million dollars. Their most successful player, Sumail Hassan, began his successful Dota playing days in Pakistan. But media rights are growing the fastest and are projected to be more than $320 million by 2021, making it the second-biggest source of revenue behind sponsorships. Esports news, interviews, and analysis, plus live tournament coverage. Thats a key difference with traditional sports, where no one owns the idea of, say, baseball. Facebook and Amazon go for 7.4 and 3.8 times this years estimated revenue. In April 2018, LGD partnered with French football giants Paris Saint-Germain to create a squad called PSG.LGD. Dota2, in particular, appears to be where most of the money is nowadays.Cumulative prizes for Dota 2 nearly reached. In games that have objectives worth points, there's going to be a position or two on a team dedicated specifically to that. 10 spot. FaZe would go on to lose to eventual champion. Tyler Blevins With an estimated net worth of 15 billion dollars, he is also known as the king of Twitch. According to Forbes, the team brings in $35 million in estimated revenue, and are currently worth an eye-watering $240 million. Fnatic - $15.39m in 903 tournaments. Reach Mike Ozanian at mozanian@forbes.com. In the Forbes annual list of the most valuable eSports organizations, two teams share the top spotSoloMid and Cloud9. He was the owner of the eSports franchise Echo Fox until his departure from the franchise in October 2019. . . Image credit: Roman Kosolapov. Fox became the team's starting small forward and achieved double-figure scoring. Last month, it sold its CDL franchise to 100 Thieves and its OpTic Gaming brand name, worth $10 million by Forbes estimates, to its original creatorHector HECZ Rodriguez, now NRG Esports co-CEOto use for that companys Chicago-based CDL franchise. They chose to build a team of good players from around the world. Intel invests in IEM and the Overwatch League Net worth: $200 billion For Spacestation, it was its. To account for market fluctuations, we used an average enterprise value between September 1 and December 1 and value the company at $180 million, ranking No. That team came third in The International 2012. Fnatics Dota 2 team was able to secure $168K in winnings playing in a very limited amount of events, having played in no events since Sept. 27. The theory is: dilution is an acceptable consequence because 20% of something worth $1 billion is greater than 100% of something worth $100 million. Gen.G are a Korean-based esports organization. As one point of comparison, this years Super Bowl drew an average of 112 million viewers, according to NBCUniversal. The organization has had an occasionally bumpy experience with esports franchise model but limits its risk exposure by fielding a manageable number of teams. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. In second on this years list is Cloud 9, another LA-based company that is valued at $350 million, down 13% from 2019. He is betting that an expansion into Fortnite will help take him there. , and more in other titles. Looking ahead, companies see a huge opportunity to monetize their fan bases through emerging technologies like blockchain, NFTs and the metaverse. In January, the company opened a 15,000-square-foot training facility and production studio, and in October, it signed with talent agency CAA for help getting its content distributed to mainstream platforms like Netflix and Amazon. Founded in 2010, this team has exploded from a group of teens with video cams and a love for video gaming and into a multinational army of gamers. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Once again, TSM, owned by Andy Dinh, leads the way, rising 32% to $540 million. Invictus Gaming 12. And unlike, say, Major League Soccerwhich has sold teams at similarly high multiplesesports has a colossal audience; the industry just has to find a way to monetize all those eyeballs. team and the $321K it made in 2020 to the No. NRG Esports already owned the San Francisco Shock OWL team, but its their acquisition of former OpTic Gaming chief Hector H3CZ Rodriguez that really turned heads among the gaming community. Esports players can earn with a regular salary from their eSports team, prize money from eSport competitions, sponsorships and usually also streaming revenue from Twitch or Youtube.