How much do esports players make? 2025 earnings breakdown

Esports has gone from a hobby to a full-time job –  and for some, a highly paid one. 

But how much do esports players make in 2025? The answer depends on the game, region, and level of play. 

In this piece, we aim to provide a clear breakdown of esports earnings, the revenue streams available to players, and how much money they actually make.

In 2025, esports earnings range from modest to massive. Entry-level pros in games like League of Legends might earn around €115,000 a year, while average LEC players take home €240,000 in esports player income. 

In North American VALORANT, top players can make $35,000–$40,000 per month. Meanwhile, tier-one Counter-Strike teams are paying up to $240,000 monthly in a combined salary for their full rosters.

Bear in mind that this is just the base salary. Esports players also earn more based on a mix of prize winnings, digital skin sales, brand sponsorships, content creation, and merchandise. A portion of these earnings comes straight from team contracts, while others earn more from their personal fan base or content creation work.

We will break down the main ways an esports player earns money in 2025 and display how much they take home across different games, regions, and roles.

Esports salaries vary depending on the game, region, and team. Not all games are equally popular in all regions after all, so here is what esports player income looks like across the biggest titles in 2025.

This data comes from Sheep Esports, who collected the esports salary information on all 50 active LEC players from the 2024 Summer and 2025 Winter splits. 

The numbers were confirmed with several reliable sources, and in more than 95% of cases, the salaries were accurate to within ±€20,000 of the actual figures. 

The numbers also go beyond just base pay. They include active roster bonuses, media appearances, and performance-based incentives that enhance the professional esports player’s salary. 

Payment setups vary by team, which affects the esports average salary and bonus structures, but in most cases, players earn more when they’re part of the starting five or involved in content creation and promotions.

These figures come from Dr Rushindra Sinha, who is the CEO and co-founder of Global Esports, a Pacific-based organisation partnered with the VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT). 

He shared these esports salary numbers during a Twitter post in early 2023, offering insight into what these look like at the very top.

Top Counter-Strike teams are spending anywhere from $100,000 to $240,000 per month on combined player salaries, making it one of the most expensive esports scenes in the world.

Here’s a breakdown of what each team is estimated to spend on player salaries every month:

These totals represent the team’s monthly esports payments for salaries, including all active roster players.

While these numbers are usually kept private, they became public in mid-2024 when Mauisnake, a well-known CS analyst and commentator, discussed them during a livestream. His comments offered one of the clearest looks yet into how much top organisations are paying to stay in the game.

Prize winnings refer to the cash that teams receive for placing well in esports competitions.

Most esports events, particularly at the top level, have a large prize pool set aside for teams. For example, in 2024, these were the top 10 esports games by prize pool, according to Esports Charts.

Esports prize pools vary greatly depending on the title. A good example is Dota 2 having the top 22 esports players by earnings up till December 2025, (all-time) according to Esports Earnings. This is because Dota 2’s biggest event of the year, The International, crowdfunds its prize pool, usually accumulating tens of millions of dollars. As a result, successful Dota 2 players often get rich: 2021’s prize pool was a staggering $40m.

It should be noted that Counter-Strike 2 has overtaken Dota 2 in terms of 2025 total prize money, with both titles being Valve games. This was done without crowdfunding, although the Counter-Strike series has always been known for the money in its skin gambling.

A good way of looking at the variance in esports money from game to game is to look at the top earners in the last year. Valve titles dominate, with CS2 and Dota 2 having the highest pay-outs, although strangely, the player making the most in the top 10 actually belongs to a Street Fighter 6 player, being especially strange considering that fighting game esports players aren’t known for being the richest around.

Kakeru earned just over $1 million in tournament winnings, making him the highest-paid player in the last year.

Here’s a look at the top-earning esports players over the past year, based on tournament prize money alone:

When a team signs with an organisation, prize money goes to the team first, not the individual players. These players tend to have contracts that explain how the prize money will be split between them and the organisation.

For example, let’s say the players are set to receive 80% of the winnings, with the remaining 20% going to the organisation. That 80% would typically be divided equally among the players, unless their contracts say otherwise.

This kind of split – 80% to players and 20% to the org – is actually a common structure for esports payments. In some cases, teams even let players keep 100% of their prize earnings, though this depends entirely on the agreement between the org and its roster. Either way, most contracts are written to give players a solid share of the esports earnings from tournaments, especially in top-tier organisations.

Most competitive online games now include an in-game store for fans to purchase cosmetics, usually called skins, for weapons, vehicles, and characters. While these help fund esports events and thus contribute to greater prize pools, others are tied directly to a team, player, or tournament.

Some games even run official revenue-sharing programs, where portions of the money from the sold skins go back to the involved esports teams.

In Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft’s R6 SHARE program gives Tier 1 teams like DarkZero, CAG Osaka, and Elevate a cut of the revenue from their branded items. In 2024, such teams earned 50% of sales from their skins. There’s also a shared pool from other bundle sales that’s split across participating teams, while a portion supports the esports ecosystem overall.

VALORANT also sells Champions Bundles and Team Capsules. In 2024 alone, sales from these bundles generated over $35 million for the 44 partnered VCT teams. Across the year, Riot Games distributed $78 million to partnered teams, with $44.3 million coming specifically from in-game bundle sales.

League of Legends is starting to follow this model, too. In March 2025, Riot released an announcement video for the Battle Academia Xayah skin, saying that a portion of sales would go to LoL esports teams. 

This can be linked to Riot’s Global Revenue Pool plan, announced in 2024. The system splits 50% of all digital content earnings with Tier 1 teams in the LEC, LCS, and LCK – but not the LPL. Here’s how it works:

Even when players are signed to an organisation, they can still land their own brand sponsorships. These individual deals give players a chance to grow their personal brand and earn money outside of team contracts.

For example, in 2025, Alexia “Lexi” Brown, a competitor and content creator for Northwood Esports, became a brand ambassador for CORSAIR. As part of the deal, she helps promote new gaming gear, appears in product campaigns, and works with the company on creative content. 

Alongside these individual player deals, many brands are also supporting broader efforts within the esports world. In 2024, Team Vitality renewed its sponsorship deal with ALDI, the international supermarket chain. Later that year, the two partners launched a new initiative focused on tackling toxicity towards women in gaming.

Some players earn money from the content they make online. There are currently two main platforms on which esports professionals monetise their content: YouTube and Twitch.

Becoming a YouTuber means that players can earn money from ad revenue on their videos, do sponsored ads for a few, and even benefit from YouTube membership, where viewers can pay monthly fees for extra content.

Twitch is also a common place for these professional esports players to live-stream their content. Like YouTube, players can make money from running ads on streams, and fans pay money to subscribe to their favourite Twitch streamer’s channel, or can donate. It helps that Twitch is a natural home for esports, since many events are broadcast on it too.

YouTube can also be used to stream, and while Twitch is more popular, players can stream on both platforms at once.

Here are five players who’ve built successful careers in content creation:

If players become big enough names, they can even sell their own merchandise. Carl Martin Erik Larsson, better known as Rekkles, sells hoodies and t-shirts on his website, for example.

Another example is Cody “Clix” Conrod. As a co-owner of the North American esports organisation XSET, Clix has been involved in launching merchandise that resonates with fans, further solidifying his brand in the gaming community.​

Of course, players need to have built significant fan bases to benefit from this revenue stream. Enough people in an esports scene need to know about the player before significant sales can be made.

What an esports player earns depends on the game they compete in and the level they play at. Top players can earn over six or even seven figures from salaries, prize money, and brand deals, but those at lower levels or less popular scenes earn significantly less.

Still, it’s clear that esports has gone beyond just a hobby. For many, it has become a profitable career that provides several ways to earn a living both in-game and out.