Elite esports careers are most likely to end early, with prize money top-heavy

Careers and prize money

The researchers analysed a 1999–2024 panel of 846 elite players from 62 countries. Exit hazards—the likelihood of leaving the elite circuit—were highest in the early years of a career and declined among players who remained. Players who entered the elite circuit at younger ages had longer careers.

Prize earnings were highly concentrated: Gini coefficients were above 0.7 across the panel, with concentration increasing in the upper tail. Real prize earnings grew rapidly in team formats but were broadly stagnant in individual formats. The authors interpret these patterns using rank-order tournament theory, which links large differences between top and lower prizes with selection, retention and earnings distribution.

Why prize design matters

The findings suggest that how esports tournaments distribute prizes is closely connected to who stays in elite competition and how earnings are spread across players. The contrast between team and individual formats also indicates that rising prize pools have not affected all kinds of esports competition in the same way. The results provide a framework for understanding how organizers’ and publishers’ prize decisions may shape elite careers, while the study does not test those decisions experimentally.

Evidence and limits

The study uses a player-year panel built from publicly available tournament records covering 846 elite players from 62 countries between 1999 and 2024. The researchers apply statistical models to career duration and annual prize earnings, but the evidence is observational rather than a randomized test. The results show patterns consistent with top-heavy prize structures shaping careers and earnings, but they do not by themselves establish that prize design caused those outcomes. The analysis focuses on elite players and recorded prize money, not all esports participants or players’ full incomes.