Dota 2 pros salaries are too high and the scene is suffering for it

With Norwegian organization HEROIC recently pulling out of the scene, the financial sustainability of the professional Dota 2 scene has been a pretty hot topic in the community.

We know that Dota 2 players are filthy rich, while most esports organizations are losing money. That begs the question of whether pro players are getting paid way too much money to click their buttons.

Let’s discuss. 

To get into the discussion, we must first understand how much professional players are actually making. According to former HEROIC player David “Parker” Nicho Flores during a live stream on ElMacarius’ channel, he, being the team’s star player at the time, was making around $15,000 per month. 

Meanwhile, his teammates were earning between $9,000 and $12,000 monthly. HEROIC also signed 16-year-old Santiago “TaiLung” Agüero Gustavo earlier this year and was paying him around $5,000 to $8,000. TaiLung, being a teenage rookie, understandably made much less than his teammates, but getting paid that much as a minor to play video games would be anyone’s dream, really.

Context also matters. HEROIC was a South American team, fielding players from Peru, Brazil, and other countries from the region. Salary expectations in SA are naturally lower than in more developed regions like Europe. HEROIC was also a middling team, hovering around the top 10 teams in the world.

With this in mind, it’s pretty safe to assume title-contending European teams, backed with heavier sponsors, are getting paid bigger bucks than what HEROIC was making. It wouldn’t be too crazy to assume that the Tundra Esports, Team Falcons, and Team Liquids of the world would be making over $20,000 to $25,000 per month at least. Living costs in Europe are significantly higher, and these guys actually win trophies. 

It really is no secret that almost all esports organizations are in the red – nobody, apart from a very few orgs, is actually making money. 

Not only do orgs have to pay players these relatively high salaries, but they also cover other expenses like boot camps. According to Parker, during the same live stream, HEROIC would spend another $15,000 to $20,000 on a single bootcamp. 

Then, you can also factor in potential flight and food costs when teams compete at events, though many tournament organizers help cover these expenses. 

And if players win tournaments and collect a share of the prize pool, the organization doesn’t get everything. Though teams approach it differently, Dota 2 prize pools were historically split seven ways: five players, one coach, and the organization itself.

So, organizations are paying all these expenses, and most of them aren’t even getting the majority of the share from event prize pools. The teams they pay bootcamp and salary expenses for aren’t even guaranteed to win tournaments, either. They might even go out in last place – or even worse – not qualify for events at all. 

Of course, prize money isn’t the only revenue stream for organizations. They make money through sponsorships plastered on jerseys and potential merchandise sales. This is primarily why most esports orgs take gambling sponsors – simply because they pay the most. And let’s be real, who even buys esports merch? I can tell you with utter confidence that only a very small percentage of fans actually purchase stuff like jerseys. 

If we start connecting the dots, the picture becomes clearer as to why most teams aren’t breaking even.

HEROIC isn’t the only organization to have pulled the plug recently. We had Team Secret and Wildcard Gaming call it quits, too. And it’s not like things are looking any better.

According to Escorenews, former PARI Esports Marketing Director Ivan Burachenko claimed that a major organization will exit Dota 2 within the next month or two. Then, two more will follow suit after The International 2026.

He went on to state:

“Even bookmakers that own teams already have a hard time looking at Dota 2 salaries. The range of $15,000 to $25,000 for players who make it to a few Tier 1 tournaments per season is unrealistic.”

Former professional player and now commentator Avery “SVG” Silverman also questioned whether player salaries make sense. On his Not for Broadcast podcast, SVG shared his thoughts on the issue:

“I still don’t understand why [organizations] are paying players so much. It just baffles me. Why are these orgs paying this much? You go into the scene, and you’re just paying these players like 10, 20, 30 thousand to go to one LAN a year, then you’re like: ‘Oh my God! This isn’t profitable!’ Then don’t pay that much.”

If the trend of organizations leaving the scene continues, the future of Dota 2 esports looks gloomy.

Sure, players can still qualify and compete at events by forming unsponsored stacks. We’ve seen this happen multiple times before, and some of these squads have found decent success. However, these guys also compete with an insane amount of additional stress and uncertainty hanging over their heads.

Without an organization backing them with salaries, players have to worry about how they’re going to put food on the table, pay their bills, or whether they’ll even have enough money to continue competing a few months from now. 

There’s also a good chance these teams won’t have adequate funding for boot camps, meaning players might have to dip into their personal savings just to prepare for events. And all of this comes without any guarantee that they’ll even place well enough to make the investment worth it.

Without organizations, it’s simply unrealistic for most professional players to spend 10 to 12 hours a day grinding Dota 2. At some point, they’ll have to prioritize stability and consider how they’ll pay their bills.

Now, I don’t have a grudge against pro players. It takes tens of thousands of hours to reach that level, and you have to live and breathe Dota 2 to get to the top. Many of these guys have sacrificed their social lives and education for the game. That level of talent, consistency, and effort absolutely deserves good salaries. 

But as an esports fan, I also don’t want to see every org pull out in the next few years and watch the scene slowly decline. If Valve isn’t going to step in and do anything about it, then it ultimately comes down to orgs and players. And one of the few feasible levers we can realistically pull is lowering player salaries.

Players are also heavily dependent on organizations, since they’re receiving salaries from them. Sacrificing some salary for job security could be a good move if it means your org doesn’t randomly pull out and leave you in the dumps. 

Alternatively, or at least in parallel, tournament prize pools could also be split more in favor of organizations. This would allow them to recoup some of the costs of funding bootcamps and operations for each event.

If nothing changes, the uncomfortable reality is that there may soon be fewer orgs left to pay those salaries in the first place.