With all of the coverage and publicity eSports are creating tournament organisers are able to offer large cash prizes. For example, the CPL in 2005 had $1,500,000 USD in cash prizes available. A career in eSports can become highly financially rewarding and as shown in the following figures there is an extremely large amount of money invested in eSports. The amount of money available for teams and tournaments has been increasing exponentially, and with the international growth in the numbers of professional and amateur gamers eSports must soon be considered to be a ‘real’ sport all over the world.
Money is extremely important in all sports, and is just as important in eSports. Tournaments take a lot of money to set up and sponsors cover some expenses. Teams are drawn to the tournaments with the best prize monies available, as are spectators, sponsors and media coverage.


* Shane 'Rapha' Hendrixson colleting his prize after winning Quakecon 2009 Duel Masters

The following list provides examples of the financial rewards available:

$40,000-$60,000 - This is the average first prize money awarded at major tournaments for Counter-Strike.

$60,000-$70,000 - This is the amount that the Ferrari Dennis “Thresh” Fong won in the Red Annihilation Quake tournament in 1998 was worth.

$78,000 - The record winnings for Counter-Strike in 2005, held by team ‘Mousesports’.

$82,500 - The record winnings for WarCraft 3 in 2005, held by Jae Ho ‘Spirit_Moon’ Jang.

$157,500 - The world record winnings of a Counter-Strike team won in one year, held by SK Gaming in 2003.

$230,000 - Park "Reach" Jung Suk, a BroodWar player from Koreas annual salary. He’s also the highest earning professional gamer.

$238,000 - The world record for the total amount of winnings made in a year by one professional gamer, held by Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager in 2005.

$250,985 - The amount of prize money handed out for Quake 4 tournaments so far.

$420,000 - The prize money available for the 2005 edition of the World Cyber Games.

$1,500,000 - The total amount of prize money handed out in Korean competitions in 1999.

$5,000,000 - The total amount of prize money handed out in Korean competitions in 2005.

(The Global Gaming League's investment in the Chinese competitive gaming market.)

$102,000,000 - Dennis "Thresh" Fong sold his company Xfire which he formed through gaming for this amount.

$1,500,000,000 - The estimated worth of the online game market in Korea, not including the value of the tournaments and teams.