The prize pool for Dota 2’s The International 2019 has finally surpassed the Fortnite World Cup’s $30 million and is continuing to grow.
The International, which is now in its ninth installment, is the showpiece event of the competitive Dota calendar – as 18 teams battle it out over 10 days to try and claim the Aegis of Champions.
Each and every year, the prize pool for the event has continued to rise thanks to fans crowdfunding through the in-game battle pass – earning cosmetics and unlocking brand new game modes with their cash. Despite have their record seemingly snatched away from them by Fortnite, and being under pressure to respond, the Dota 2 community has finally taken back their record with an eye-watering amount.
On July 21, at around 12 AM PST, Dota finally eclipsed the absurd $30 million mark by a few thousand dollars.
At the time of writing, the prize pool for The International 9 stands at $30,017,526 according to the Dota 2 prize pool tracking website and looks set to continue its growth upon previous International events, never mind solely the World Cup.
As it stands, The International 9 is already $5 million ahead of last year’s record-breaking 25.5 million total. It took fans a touch over 105 days to raise that amount but they’ve already been able to hit $30 million in just over 74 days.
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Yet, with 35 days left until crowdfunding concludes, the prize pool could very well continue to surge to new levels.
Valve has yet to release the highly-anticipated Immortals Treasure III – which will be filled with plenty of legendary cosmetics – and fans will likely still want to splash out in the hopes of grabbing the new skins.
With the Fortnite World Cup fast approaching on July 26, Epic Games will be disappointed that they won’t be able to boast about having the large esports prize pool for long.
For now, thanks to the incredible support for their game shown by Dota fans, they hold the record once again.