by Dota 2’s The International 2022 prize pool recently surpassed the $11 million threshold and continues to grow. Despite the increase, battle pass sales are going noticeably slower than expected.
TI11’s prize pool is currently at $11,091,022 after 13 days and some hours since battle pass sales started and is presently more than $2 million behind the record-setting prize pool growth pace of TI10. Out of that amount, Valve’s base contribution to the prize pool is $1.6 million, while the remaining $9,391,022 million was obtained from battle pass sales.
The event’s $11 million reportedly deposed TI4 in the position of the esports’ ninth largest tournament prize pool of all time. However, TI11’s prize pool is so far behind the previous tournament that Valve’s 10-tournament record might be coming to an end. Since The International was introduced in 2011 by Valve, each iteration of the event has had a sizably larger prize pool than the previous.
The increased prize pool for each TI event every year also served to break the esports world record for the tournament with the largest prize pool. The TI10 last year was no different and broke the record as the first esports tournament to ever reach a $40 million prize pool.
TI11, on the other hand, started its battle pass sales not as early as the previous times. The battle pass was also heavily criticized by fans and eventually split into two parts, one of which will reportedly not go into supporting the tournament. The current situation will likely persist or even worsen if Valve fails to make any significant difference in the current battle pass in the coming weeks.
The prize pool curve for the T1 is currently on the verge of flatlining and, by early October, may not reach the growth of TI7 as well as TI8. However, for this to happen, sales will have to slow down significantly and experience some bumps. TI11’s battle pass sales will also see a boost soon, with Valve gearing up to launch the first new Level Bundles set.
Notwithstanding, TI11 will likely not be able to pass or even reach TI10 or TI9 before November 2, when Part 1 of the tournament’s battle pass comes to an end. TI9 may also remain ahead of TI11 by the end of the week with its $34,292,599 prize pool if things continue to progress like this.
The last time the TI11 prize pool was checked in was on September 9, and at the time, it was $10 million. The pass sales has kept up a steady pace since it kicked off on September 1. However, it recently started going down to the point of almost flatlining.
After receiving feedback about the battle pass, Valve tweaked the points awarded at specific points, as well as a few other aspects of the battle pass. The sales of TI11’s battle pass did not receive any significant boost even after Valve made some minor improvements.
