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Prize money, the reason why eSports has become a successful business, creating brands, teams, merchandise and stars for the CS:GO scene. Largely, it’s touted, but in a way to project the eSport onto the mainstream media as a legitimate concept or occupation. But very rarely is this prize money seen as something that motivates players to achieve their dreams and entertain fans across the world. Nor is it’s significance highlighted in ways beyond it checking the box that it can earn you a lot of cash through eSports and make it your full time occupation.

In a lot of ways, I see prize money as something different within CS:GO, and I’ve tracked it for the past two years across my YouTube channel. For me prize money isn’t just a way of showing the success of the eSports scene, or CS:GO, but rather it’s a metric of which you can measure the consistency, success and seasonal changes in which teams perform.

Now sure, you can measure success in a number of ways, and there is no one right way, whether that be power rankings, or a mathematical ranking system based on points, or even the statistics of an individual player. I merely like to see prize money as an ancillary or additional metric by which we can determine the greatest teams of all time, or even the most successful players et cetera.

Today, we’re going to be going through the prize money for teams within CS:GO’s eSports scene and find the Top 20 highest earning teams for Q2 2017, that are relevant to the Tier 1 LAN scene. Now there are many ways to define what a “Tier 1” team is, but for me it’s more like what teams are always being invited to LANs and qualifying for tournaments or the professional leagues. I’m not trying to say a team like the L.A Renegades is a “Tier 1 team”, because they are not, they are far from it. I think there is a clear distinction between the Tier 1 scene and a Tier 1 team. For instance, you can be a Tier 2 team like Cloud9, but be a part of the Tier 1 scene, seeing as you either qualify or are invited to tournaments to compete against the Tier 1 teams, within the Tier 1 scene. In other words, if you are playing in the biggest tournaments of the year consistently, you are most likely part of the Tier 1 scene.

With that out of the way, I want to explain some things. You may add up some of these numbers and be thinking, “I’m getting different numbers to you!” and that’s fine. This is because I have some rules, or rather guidelines as I like to call them, as I’m willing to be a bit flexible with them. The first is that of course, I really only look at relevant teams, so if you are a team like “The Chiefs” from Australia, I’m sure you are a good team, but I’m probably not going to calculate your prize money, mainly because you most likely wouldn’t earn as much, nor are you really part of the Tier 1 scene with a large fanbase. So if you’re too small of a fish I won’t bother, mainly because this takes a lot of time to calculate, and if you’re not really a mainstay within the scene there’s little point of calculating prize money for a team that may not exist in 3–4 months into the year. That is my first guideline or rule, if you’re not Tier 1, you’re not really investigated.

My second guideline is that teams must keep a majority of their players throughout the year. Much like with majors, to keep your spot on my list, you must have 3 players stay within a team for that prize money to be counted. On top of that, if you switch organisations, say like how NBK, KennyS and apEX left Team EnVyUs for G2, you carry your prize money from your previous team to your new one, i.e, Team EnVyUs players moving to G2 eSports = that money transferring with them to the new organisation. Now in some cases, like what happened with FaZe you have many roster changes, and it would just be too confusing to keep eliminating prize money, so for that team I may make an exception and tie the money to the organisation, especially if the players scramble between too many organisations. This happened with FaZe, with Maikelele and jkaem leaving to dignitas, with Aizy moving to North after being kicked, only for Maikelele to get kicked from Dignitas, with Allu and Kioshima joining FaZe, only to be kicked again with Allu moving to OpTiC with Kioshima in limbo or being team-less. It’s just too hard in that case to eliminate all the money, and it’s much better to just tie it with the organisation, in this case FaZe, or one player, in this case Rain, since it just makes more sense. Plus FaZe had like 3 different rosters this year and the mainly laid the foundations with the addition of Karrigan, so if the foundations kind of stay similar, I’m willing to make an exception. Hence, I kind of bent the rule, but in most cases I won’t, this was just too exceptional of a case and probably won’t happen again.

Alright, enough with the rules and confusing guidelines. Let’s just get to the prize money results.

So let’s go team by team, for the Top 10 teams, and then I’ll just show the whole chart at the end, you can skip right there if you’re not interested in some other statistics and just look at all the financial figures, but strap in if you want to learn a little more about each team and some neat stats.

Q2 2017 — Prize Money CS:GO

So here’s just the prize money for Q2 2017, which starts from the 1st of April 2017 and ends June 30th 2017, so anything outside those dates isn’t calculated here, but it will be later on in another article.

10. FNATIC — $105,000

FNATIC have had a tough year, and even though this roster died, the main stays of KRiMZ, Flusha and JW allowed the roster to remain successful after rejoining from GODSENT. However, Q2 was the beginning of the end for the once dominant roster of 2014, with their best placing coming from Dreamhack Summer 2017 where they placed 2nd, raking in $20,000. Their biggest monetary gain was placing 7th-8th at ESL Pro League Season 5 finals, where they gained $40,000. But this was a far cry from 2014 and 2015 where the team managed to consistently place Top 4. Either way, they managed to place Top 10 in terms of prize money for Q2 2017, $15,000 ahead of Gambit which placed 11th.

9. The Immortals — $111,000

Just scraping past FNATIC for 9th place, the Immortals began their rise to stardom and what would eventually lead to a second placing at the major in Q3 of 2017. Yes, it all started right here in Q2. Ever since they benched former SK star fnx, in favor of kNg, the team started to become much more consistent. With a second placing at Dreamhack Austin 2017 netting the team $20,000, another second placing at the Americas Minor Championship — Krakow worth $15,000, a 3rd-4th placing at Dreamhack Summer 2017 for another $10,000 it was clear the team was progressing to become much more consistent and deadly. However, all those results would not compare to their lackluster showing within the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, where they managed 9th-11th place but scored $35,000, their largest amount of prize money until the Major in Krakow in Q3 2017.

8. Team Liquid — $113,250

Bet you weren’t expecting Liquid to place so high. Nor did I. I had to go back and check these numbers, but sure enough they are right. They started off with pretty dismal placings in Q2 2017, with 5th-6th placing at cs_summit losing to OpTiC Gaming, a 7th-8th placing at Dreamhack Austin 2017 and 5th-8th placing at the Subaru Invitational 2017 Online, things were looking dicey for the once major finalists in 2016. However, things picked up for them, with a stunning out of place performance at ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, where they placed Top 4, which net them 52.9% of their prize money for this quarter all in one go. This was then followed by a decent showing at ECS Season 3 Finals, where they placed Top 6 and net an additional $45,000. So whilst Liquid was inconsistent overall, they performed admirably in the bigger tournaments or LANs where it mattered most, and they picked up a lot of prize money to boot!

7. The North — $114,750

The Danes that were set to strike fear into their enemies had started off Q2 not looking to hot, with a 5th-8th placing at StarSeries Season 3 Finals and a 6th-7th placing at IEM Sydney 2017, all looked like North was going south. When it got to ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, everything changed, with North battling past Mousesports, NRG, Na’Vi and OpTiC in some close matches, losing finally to Liquid 16–10, but allowing themselves to place top of their group and head straight to the semi-finals. There they met Liquid again, in a Best-of-Two and they managed to correct their earlier group stage loss with a swift 2–0 and a convincing victory on Nuke. At last they met the new French super-team G2, of which they famously have a rivalry, where North conceded. However, one man’s loss is another’s gain, with 87.1% of their prize money for the entire second quarter coming from this one placing. Amazingly, this one placing projected them to 7th place, without it, they may have not even made it into the Top 20 for the quarter.

6. OpTiC Gaming — $127,500

When you think of Top 6 teams, you don’t think of OpTiC, and you shouldn’t. Yet, somehow in Q2, they raked in a f*ckload of paper! Sadly with RUSH, Tarik, NAF-Fly and Hazed leaving the team, we will never see the continuation of this one great North American roster. Rest assured though, their time will be put down in history as one of the most successful North American sides, especially in 2016 where they placed Top 4 for the entire year in terms of prize money. Either way, this team was beginning to lose it’s freshness, with a third placing at cs_summit heeding them $19,500 and 3rd-4th place at IEM Sydney 2017 netting an additional $20,000. With ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals giving them their largest take of $40,000 for 7th-8th place, and ECS Season 3 Finals pushing another $35,000 their way. For sure at the end, things weren’t looking too hot, but just being able to qualify for those bigger tournaments like ESL Pro League Finals and ECS Season 3 Finals gave them enough dough to push them over the line.

5. Cloud9 — $167,500

Cloud9 are living up to their name, I mean with all the money they made with Q2 and placing Top 5 in terms of prize money there is little for them to complain about. What can I say? Every year, Cloud9 happens to have a really good summer, they manage to peak in performance almost every time this year since 2015. While Shroud and nOthing have left the team in Q3 2017, I still have high hopes for the likes of Skadoodle, Stewie and Autimatic, seeing as they managed to pick up two players from OpTiC, these being: tarik and RUSH, who placed just below them in terms of prize money. So let’s hope next year’s Summer9 can get Top 3! Mainly Cloud9 is here because they get 4th-6th place at most tournaments within Q2, however, there are moments of brilliance like 1st place at the Americas Minor Championship 2017- Krakow. Followed by a low like 11th-12th place at ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, where they somehow got $32,500 in prize money. But their biggest achievement perhaps within the summer was 3rd-4th place at ECS Season 3 Finals where they net $65,000 which was their biggest take for the year thus far, and 38.8% of their total earnings in Q2. All I can say is, don’t under estimate Cloud9, they have some deadly aimers, and when they know how to utilise them, they get good results. It’s just a question of when does their time to shine come?

4. FaZe — $312,000

Well we hit quite the jump, almost twice as much prize money between 5th and 4th place (1.86 times in fact), and maybe a very controversial placing, considering this team’s prize money wouldn’t be counted under my rules. But what can I say? I’m just going to let all this great prize money go to waste, and be eliminated completely since all the players moved off the different teams? Not a chance! For this one exception, I’ll tie the money with the organisation. After all, most of the success of this team came after Karrigan joined as in-game leader and laid the foundations for this team. I look at the prize money more of Karrigan’s effort with the organisation to make a star studded team and this only became more amplified after Niko finally left ELO-hell in Mouz to join FaZe in Q1 of 2017. So yeah, I am willing to make an exception, considering most of this money was earned by Karrigan, rain and Niko, all of which joined the team before Q2 2017. In total, their biggest takings were first place at StarSeries Season 3 Finals worth $125,000 (40% of their prize money in Q2 2017), second place at IEM Sydney 2017 which net them $40,000, seventh place in ESL Pro League online for Europe which gave the team $27,000 and lastly the second placing at ECS Season 3 Finals which net them $120,000 (38.46% of their total cash in Q2 2017). In my eyes, this team will only get better, with GuardiaN and Olofmeister arguably being upgrades over Allu and Kioshima, so I’m actually giddy to see FaZe’s Q3 and Q4 performances for 2017.

3. G2 eSports — $340,000

The French baguettes never seem to disappoint do they? Well actually they do. Even though this team placed Top 3, when they first formed in Q1 2017, I remember when this team wasn’t doing so hot. Rather than being a French super-team, they were more like a French super-meme, accentuating all the problems with the French scene: plenty of aim, no brain, massive inconsistent performances, only one player performing at a time etc, etc. But they bounced back, got their shit together, and managed to become much more consistent. Now while I wouldn’t say they are the best team in the world, they have the ability to be, and when all cylinders are firing this team is indeed scary. Imagine KennyS dominating with the AWP getting opening picks left and right, apEX getting the important entry frags on T-side, NBK and bodyy anchoring separate bombsites on CT-side and shox leading the team and clutching the big rounds which he is so known for. A scary thought indeed, and every once in a while, it comes true… like what happened at ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals where they beat their notable rivals the North, 3 to 1 in a Best-of-Five for a total of $225,000 in cash, which amounted to 66% of their prize money in Q2 2017. Could you imagine…? You win one tournament, and all the sudden everyone is $37,500 richer, and that’s if the money is divided equally. It’s kind of insane! This for sure isn’t the end for G2, but just the beginning of what I think may be future major winners… if they survive long enough to make it to 2018 and don’t go back to being a French super-meme. #Pray4Baguette

2. Astralis — $408,000

Just like Cloud9, Astralis are living up to their name and are heading straight to the stars! I honestly have to disclose, I fanboy this team, I’ve always like the triple threat of Device, Dupreeh and Xyp9x, and when they won the major earlier this year, it was like a great load had been lifted and they finally achieved their dream. Either way, the success never ended in Q1 2017 it seems, and Astralis managed to rake in $408,000. Most of it off the back of the ELEAGUE Clash for Cash where they got an easy $250,000 by defeating Virtus.Pro 2:1. Yeah, it’s kind of cheap to get 61.27% of your prize money for this quarter from beating an under-performing Virtus.Pro in a show-match. But the team has had some good results, such as second place at StarSeries Season 3 Finals which gave the team $50,000 and 3rd-4th place at ECS Season 3 Finals which net them an additional $65,000. From this, it’s clear to see Astralis are still a deadly and consistent team, with plenty of gas left in the tank, at the very least they are almost guaranteed to make it out of the groups in a tournament. Let’s just hope in Q3 and Q4 they get the majority of their prize money from real tournaments, rather than show-matches. Furthermore, I think the ELEAGUE Clash for Cash kind of outlines that while prize money can be a metric of which to assess success, it doesn’t tell the whole story, because there are times where teams win money from events like this one, which mean very little or have an over-inflated prize pool with no stacked teams. I personally think prize money is a good metric, but it must be used in addition with statistics and more context as to how the money was gained.

SK Gaming — $534,750

The best team of 2016 seems to continue their dominance, success and prowess within the CS:GO scene, by topping Q2 2017 overall with the most prize money. What can I say really? SK topped 2016 with $1,798,973.97 of total prize money for that year, in Q1 2017, they finished fifth for prize money with $174,000, but they bounced back to form as expected managing four first placings in Q2 2017 alone... That’s FNATIC 2014 levels of dominance. It all started for SK with cs_summit where they finished first and gained $63,750, then they finished first at IEM Sydney 2017 and net themselves $100,000, then they beat FNATIC at Dreamhack Summer 2017 grabbing hold to another $50,000 and then they got first place at ECS Season 3 Finals worth a mighty $250,000! In between they had a 3rd-4th placing at ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, which gave the Brazilians $60,000. But overall, they were the dominant force of Q2 2017, and it shows in their prize money. Not to mention, unlike Astralis, SK Gaming’s dominance and prize money was all earned legitimately, without any of that show-match magic. I can say without certainty, they may again, be the best team of 2017 with their performances, and if they keep it up for the next half of the year, we may have another team just like FNATIC for the history books.

Some other little facts about Q2 2017 — Prize Money