CS:GO Was the Most Lucrative Esports Title in the First Half of 2021

CS:GO is far from being a dead game, especially with the stale online competitive scene being brought back to life with the recently concluded IEM Cologne 2021. Counter-Strike's return to LAN in over a year was great, featuring a 1 million USD prize pool while achieving a peak of 843,369 viewers. Even apart from that tournament, CS:GO has been doing really well mainly when it comes to tournament prize pools. As per a report by Sports Business Journal (SBJ), CS:GO has topped the list of total prize money spent in the first half of 2021 across all esports titles, from 1^st January to 30^th June.

Total CS:GO tournament prize money exceeds $7 million in the first half of 2021

It has been a great first half for CS:GO in 2021 with massive tournaments like IEM Katowice 2021, BLAST Premier: Global Final 2020, and ESL Pro League Season 13 taking place in the first couple of months itself. Despite the competitive scene shifting online, CS:GO tournaments have continued to feature healthy prize pools, successfully keeping the competitive scene alive and thriving.

Despite being almost a decade old, CS:GO has shown consistency when it comes to overall tournament prize pool in the first half of 2021, which amounts to about $7,980,000 USD.

The esports title seldom witnesses events with an insanely huge prize pool. Despite multiple organizers doing their own thing, the prize amount is more or less the same across different tournament tiers.

This has led to CS:GO taking the top spot when the total prize money of all tournaments across different esports titles is taken into consideration for H1 2021, beating out games like PUBG, Fortnite, Dota 2, Valorant, and more.

_{Note: The above table is based on information collected by Sports Business Journal. H1 2021 dates are from 1^st Jan to 30^th June.}

CS:GO has a few big tournaments lined up for the second half of the year like ESL Pro League Season 14, PGL Major Stockholm 2021, and BLAST Premier: World Final 2021 featuring huge prize pools like $750,000 USD, $2,000,000 USD, and $1,000,000 USD, respectively.

However, it will not be possible for CS:GO to hold on to the top spot under this category for H2 2021 because a lot of other incredibly huge tournaments are scheduled to take place in the next few months.