IESF reveal $1,000,000 prize pool for 2024 World Esports Championship

The International Esports Federation has announced the prize pool for the upcoming 2024 World Esports Championship, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which will take place between November 11th and November 19th. The million dollars will be split between 64 teams from eight different categories.

The two Counter-Strike categories, men's and women's, take the biggest share of the cake, with $400,000 being awarded to the top eight of each competition. Of note is the disparity between the prize pools for women's and men's competitions, both in CS and in Mobile Legends, despite Article B 9b. of the IESF Statues stating that:

All parties related to the IESF, including its Members and partners, shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women and to promote and elevate the participation of female players in order to ensure, based on gender equality, the same rights, in particular, to participate in recreation, leisure and sports activities and all aspects of cultural life.

The male CS competition prize pool of $240,000 rivals those of CCT Online Finals and Elisa Master Espoo and is more than double that of the previous IESF World Championship Counter-Strike event. As for the women's event, the prize pool has doubled, going from $80,000 to $160,000, making it the biggest event for female CS players since the WESG 2017 World Finals, which had a $170,000 prize pool.

As previously mentioned, the $1,000,000 will be split between eight different categories, Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike Female, Dota 2, Mobile Legends, Mobile Legends Female, PUBG Mobile, and eFootball. The top eight of each of the categories will be awarded part of the respective prize pool, except for PUBG Mobile which will have the top 16 win money.

This is how the prize pools will be split between the men's and women's teams:

Dust2.us is aware that the sum of the individual prizes for the women's competition adds up to $160,500 and not the $160,000 IESF states. Regardless, this is the information the Federation has made available on the official website post.

While the 2023 World Esports Championship ended with allegations of corruption, the 2024 WEC has been embroiled in controversy since the very announcement of the competition, as it was seen as another attempt at "sportswashing" Saudi Arabia's image to the Western esports community. More recently, the President of the Norwegian Esports Federation and the CEO of Esports Canada, both members of the IESF, stated that they couldn't guarantee the security of any LGBTQ+ players or staff that might travel to compete in the Riyadh-held event.