Biggest Money Makers in eSports 2020

Making Money in eSports: Chess Player Scores Highest in 2020

After years of slow but steady growth, the eSports industry really began to take off around 2017, and exploded in 2020. Stay home, they said. Find ways to entertain yourself, they said. Need money? Get creative, they said. Competitive video gaming solved all of these problems – at least, for those good enough to play professionally, and finish in a prize worthy position.

Yo might be surprised to learn just how much the biggest money makers in eSports pocketed in 2020. It’s nowhere on the lines of professional athletes. They aren’t pulling in million dollar salaries like the top NBA, NFL and NHL players. In fact, they have to perform extremely well to earn much of anything at all. But those who do are easily banking 6-figures.

According to data collected courtesy of EsportsEarnings.com, the top 132 eSports competitors in the world each hauled in at least US$100,000, scaling up to more than $500,000 tot he richest player of the year.

Who’s Making Money in eSports?

We recognized a lot of the names on the list of Top eSports Earners 2020. They’re the same names found in our reviews of the top Call of Duty, Dota2 and Rainbow 6 teams. What we didn’t expect to see was the name Sven “Magnus” Carlsen, a.k.a. DrNykterstein, topping the list.

‘Why not’, you ask? Because he’s a world-class chess player. And to be honest, when we think ‘eSports’, our minds don’t naturally wander to virtual chess. We may think about nay of a hundred different PC or console video games, but we really don’t think about chess.

Magnus Carlsen thinks about it a lot, though. In 2020, the 30-year-old Norwegian chessmaster thought about it so much, he earned $510,587 in competitive play on Chess24.com. Way to go, Magnus! That 6-figure chunk of change earned you the top spot among this year’s biggest eSports money makers.

Who else is on the list? A couple more Chess24 elites, but mostly traditional eSport-ers. Let’s take a look at the top thirty highest earners in 2020.

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