Esports competitions have long turned into a full-fledged and fast-growing industry with impressive events, records, and, of course, funny moments. Professional esports tournaments have come a much longer way than one might imagine. Those who carefully follow these events in recent years know about all the most significant stories and players who took the esports scene by storm. But at the same time, many casual gamers have overlooked numerous interesting facts and trivia about this evolving business. With that in mind, we have decided to compile a few of the more notable ones in this article.
The record-breaking International 2021
In 2011, the DOTA 2 developer Valve hosted The International for the first time. Back then, the company offered the most skilled DOTA 2 players $1 million for first place, which was unheard of at the time. After two such annual events, Valve implemented a crowdfunding model to generate even bigger prize pools. This idea culminated in 2021 when the $1.6 million base award turned into over $40 million. As a result, the winners of the tenth tournament split the $18.2 million between the five, and each of them came home $3.6 million richer.
The first esports tournament took place 50 years ago
Many casual players assume that the esports niche began to develop in the 90s but this is not the case. In reality, the first iteration of the esports event saw the world in October 1972 thanks to Stanford University. This educational institution organized the Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics so that players could compete in the Spacewar game. The esports pioneers used the PDP-1 computer as their gaming device. And when Bruce Baumgart won first place in the Free for all category, he received a one-year subscription to Rolling Stone magazine.
Insane viewership at the League of Legends World Championship 2019
We have often mentioned that League of Legends is an incredibly popular esports title in previous articles. But this fact surely will give you an idea of how many people are passionate about this game. In 2019, more than 100 million viewers put their business on hold to watch the World Championship Grand Finals between G2 Esports and FunPlus Phoenix. To give you a perspective of how big that audience was, the NFL Super Bowl had $98.8 million viewers in 2020.
Daigo “The Beast” Umehara and his career achievements
Gamers tend to call Daigo Umehara the most skilled esports fighter of all time. Given that he has been on the top of this video gaming pro scene for 20 years, this perception is not surprising. And yet, few people know that Daigo has been in the Guinness Book of Records twice for the “Most Consecutive Tournament Wins” and “Most Viewed Fighting Video Game”. Apart from this, Umehara is also the author of five published books and a popular manga, in which he is the main character.
“Ancient” Counter-Strike team
Those who think that an esports career suits teenagers and young players will certainly be surprised when they hear about the Silver Snipers team. This Counter-Strike squad consists of five players over the age of 60. Moreover, the youngest member of this Swedish team is 68 years old. Two other players currently competing under this brand are 73 and 78 years old. Abbe “BirDie” Borg, who left the team relatively recently, said that he was extremely happy to become the champion of the Seniors World Cup despite his advanced age. According to him, esports games and events are a terrific opportunity to build more bridges between young and old generations.
