Last year, the eSports market experienced a tremendous growth. In addition to the steady increase of the amount of eSports enthusiasts all over the world this growth is reflected by record-breaking viewership numbers, new dimensions of prize money and investments into the millions. Reason enough for us to look back on 2015 and sum up a few of the most interesting numbers.

This article features:

• eSports events with the highest amount of unique viewers in 2015
• eSports events with the highest amount of peak concurrent viewers in 2015
• eSports events with the highest amount of visitors on site in 2015
• Investments and buyouts in the eSports market in 2015
• eSports clubs with the highest prize money winnings in 2015
• eSports players with the highest prize money winnings in 2015
• Total awarded prize money ordered by eSports game in 2015

eSports events with the highest amount of unique viewers

Event	Game	Unique viewers
Worlds 2015	League of Legends	36,000,000	Source
ESL One Cologne 2015	CS:GO	27,000,000	Source
DreamHack Cluj 2015	CS:GO	25,090,864	Source
ESL One Katowice 2015	CS:GO	8,780,000	Source
Gfinity Championship Series 2015	CS:GO	8,750,000	Source
WoT World Championship 2015	World of Tanks	2,600,000	Source
ESL Championship (Spring) 2015	multiple	1,055,840	Source
Smite World Championship 2015	Smite	> 1,000,000	Source
Red Bull Gaming Ground 2015	Dota2	500,000	Source
The Main 2015	League of Legends	310,000	Source

eSports events with the highest amount of peak CCU

Event	Game	Peak Concurrent Viewers
Worlds 2015	League of Legends	14,000,000	Source
The International 2015	Dota2	4,606,264*	Source
IEM Katowice 2015	League of Legends	2,600,000	Source
ESL One Cologne 2015	CS:GO	1,300,000	Source
ESL One Katowice 2015	CS:GO	1,012,745	Source
ESL One Frankfurt 2015	Dota2	1,000,000	Source
DreamHack Cluj 2015	CS:GO	985.052	Source

* There is no official data regarding the International 2015 (TI5), but we have received a lot of feedback which criticizes TI5 not being on the list. We have received a source which shows that the final match had at least 4,606,264 viewers at a certain time. Therefore we added it, but we cannot be sure if this is the official amount of peak concurrent viewers.

eSports events with the highest amount of visitors on site in 2015

Event	Game	Visitors on site
IEM Katowice	Multiple	104,000	Source
ESL One Frankfurt 2015 (Commerzbank Arena)	Dota2	30,000	Source
LCS Final NA 2015 (Madison Square Garden, NY)	League of Legends	22,000	Source
ESL One Cologne 2015 (LANXESS Arena)	CS:GO	22,000	Source
LCS Final EU 2015 (Hovet Arena, Stockholm)	League of Legends	20,000	Source
The International 2015 (KeyArena, Seattle)	Dota2	> 17,000*	Source
Worlds 2015 Final (Mercedes-Benz Arena, Berlin)	League of Legends	13,000	Source

* There is no official data regarding the International 2015 (TI5), but we have received a lot of feedback which criticizes TI5 not being on the list. Therefore we added it. The tournament lasted six days and took place in the KeyArena in Seattle which has a total seating capacity of over 17,000. Since the final day of the tournament was sold out it is safe to assume that it had more than 17.000 visitors on site, but at this moment we cannot provide any additional and profound data.

Investments and buyouts in the eSports market in 2015

Investor/Buyer	Company	Investment
USM Holdings	Virtus.pro	$ 100,000,000	Source
Modern Times Group	Turtle Entertainment GmbH	$ 84,987,000	Source
Activision Blizzard	Major League Gaming	$ 46,000,000	Source
Riot Games	Curse	$ 30,000,000	Source
Index Ventures and more	Super Evil Megacorp	$ 26,000,000	Source
Modern Times Group	DreamHack	$ 25,000,000	Source
FanDuel	AlphaDraft	< $ 25,000,000	Source
Universal Music Group and more	Vulcun	$ 12,000,000	Source
Binary Capital, Mark Cuban and more	Unikrn	$ 10,000,000	Source
March Capital Partners and more	Dojo Madness	$ 2,260,700	Source

Clubs with the highest prize money winnings in 2015

Club	Prize money won
Evil Geniuses	$8,958,225	Source
CDEC Gaming	$3,295,931	Source
LGD Gaming	$3,226,494	Source
Vici Gaming	$2,624,702	Source
Team Secret	$2,231,114	Source
Virtus.pro	$2,157,685	Source
COGnitive Gaming	$1,768,958	Source
EHOME	$1,627,431	Source
SK Telecom T1	$1,531,484	Source
Cloud9	$1,469,200	Source

Players with the highest prize money winnings in 2015

Player	Game	Prize money won
Peter Dager (ppd)	Dota2	$1,730,076	Source
Saahil Arora (UNiVeRsE)	Dota2	$1,730,076	Source
Clinton Loomis (Fear)	Dota2	$1,730,076	Source
Sumail Hassan (SumaiL)	Dota2	$1,730,076	Source
Kurtis Ling (Aui_2000)	Dota2	$1,641,750	Source
Sun, Zheng (Agressif)	Dota2	$651,470	Source
Liu, Xinzhou (garder)	Dota2	$651,470	Source
Fu, Bin (Q)	Dota2	$651,470	Source
Chen, Zezhi (Xz)	Dota2	$644,622	Source
Huang, Jiwei (Shiki)	Dota2	$644,622	Source

Total awarded prize money ordered by eSports game in 2015

Game	Awarded prize money
Dota 2	$31,015,892	Source
League of Legends	$7,639,121	Source
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive	$6,177,015	Source
Smite	$3,648,508	Source
StarCraft II	$2,806,310	Source
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare	$2,471,347	Source
Heroes of the Storm	$2,410,690	Source
Hearthstone: Heroes of WarCraft	$2,355,140	Source
Heroes of Newerth	$755,546	Source
Ultra Street Fighter IV	$559,346	Source

// Image source: eslgaming.com / Photograph: Patrick Strack

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