The International 9 now has the highest prize pool ever for a TI tournament.

The International 9 has now officially broken the record for the highest prize pool of all time, having raised over $25M USD. Now that the EPICENTER Major has ended, all eyes are on TI9. We already know all of the direct invites, and we'll have a more in-depth analysis about them soon.

Naturally, TI is the event which matters the most mainly due to its life-changing prize pool. Apart from that, it is considered to be a sort of a “Dota World Cup” type of tournament, so there is definitely a lot of pride involved as well.

The International 2019 now has the LARGEST PRIZE POOL in the history of The International. #TI9 #Dota2 pic.twitter.com/Tt6xsMSoTB — Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) July 1, 2019

Keep your eyes on the prize

However, let’s get back to the prize pool. Historically speaking, TI’s have always had the highest prize pool of any tournament in any esports. Having said that, today the tournament has re-written history yet again. The TI 9 prize pool is now the biggest prize pool ever for an esports event - $25,532,177 and counting.

The real interesting thing, however, is that there is over a month left until the actual tournament. This means that the prize pool will continue to add more and more money, and no one can say what the final total will be.

The Weekend Bundle

Last week, Valve released the "Weekend Bundle." Since then, the prize pool has gone up by $6,000,000, which is just mind-blowing. Of course, the fact that some people abused the system by getting two instead of one might also have something to do it. One could say that Valve simply leaves those loopholes open on purpose. But this is just pure speculation and probably fans and analysts might never know the answer.

What’s next?

Remember that there is still a lot of stuff that Valve will release into the Battle Pass itself. We are expecting to see The Wratch of Moro’Kai event this week, and let's not forget the upcoming Immortal Treasure II and III.

If things continue at their current pace, the TI9 prize pool could break the $30M USD barrier by the start of the tournament.

Image VIA: Wykrhm