ESL has raised the prize pool of the upcoming IEM Rio Major, the second Valve-sponsored CS:GO tournament of the year, from $1 million to $1.25 million. This means that each of the 24 teams attending the event will now earn prize money.
ESL relocated the additional $250,000 from the IEM Road to Rio prize pool. Before this change, the bottom-placed teams (17th to 24th) would not earn any prize money whatsoever, just sticker money. Now, they’ll win $10,000 for their placing and the rest of the money was allocated across the other placings aside from the champion, who will still earn $500,000.
This change in the prize pool means the IEM Rio Major will feature a bigger prize pool than 16 Majors offered in the past. The first Brazilian Major is only behind the PGL Stockholm Major, which offered $2 million in prize pool because of the Major hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DreamHack Winter 2013, the first CS:GO Major, offered a $250,000 prize pool, and that value was kept until MLG Columbus 2016, the first CS:GO Major to set the prize pool at $1 million.
The announcement of IEM Rio Major’s prize pool increase has been widely approved in the CS:GO community. The actual tournament will run from Oct. 31 to Nov. 14 in Rio de Janeiro, but all of the teams will be decided in early October with the Regional Major Ranking (RMR) events for Europe, Americas, and Asia. Europe will take 16 slots in total, while American teams will fight for six slots, and two Asian teams will complete the list.
