Valorant is still an absolute newcomer in e-sports. The game has only been officially on the market for a month, and there is still no official league. Nevertheless, e-sports organizations are already investing heavily in pro teams with high salaries.
What does the e-sports scene look like right now? Valorant has been on the market for almost a month, and there is still no official e-sports league. There are individual tournaments with prize pools of up to $50,000. And Riot is currently supporting a number of tournaments under the “Ignition Series.” But aside from that, not much has happened in the e-sports area so far.
Nevertheless, well-known e-sports organizations like G2 are already investing in Valorant and building squads of well-paid professionals.
Valorant pros – $60,000 a year and not much to do
What do professionals earn in Valorant? According to a report from eSportObserver, salaries of $15,000 to $25,000 per month are already being paid to Valorant teams. Individual players can earn annual salaries of $60,000 or more.
This is relatively low compared to games like LoL, where a pro can expect at least $75,000 a year, but for a young game like Valorant, which still has no official league, it’s quite a significant amount.
Furthermore, there isn’t much happening in the Valorant e-sports scene right now. There are only a few top tournaments, and the competitive landscape is limited. Given the workload, these salaries are therefore quite generous.
Why are e-sports organizations investing so heavily in Valorant? In previous games like PUBG, Fortnite, and Apex Legends, significant investments were made in pro teams even before an official league was established. The hope is and was that the respective game would develop into an e-sports hit, and that the invested sums would be returned manifold.
This can work well, but it can also go wrong, as happened with PUBG. There, the interest of viewers was not maintained over the long term, and in the end, the battle royale game did not become a major e-sports hit. E-sports companies incurred losses because they had also invested a lot of money in top teams that ultimately did not deliver the expected “return on investment.”
Our sister site GameStar has an interesting article about PUBGs issues in e-sports.
Nevertheless, from the perspective of many e-sports companies, it is wise to invest early in a pro team for a promising game. This way, they can be on board in time when it takes off. Whether this will ultimately succeed with Valorant will only be shown in the future. At least there are already dramas about injured professionals:
Among the top players of Valorant, there are, by the way, some well-known pros from other games. For example, the famous Overwatch pro Sinatraa suddenly left Overwatch to join Valorant. If Valorant becomes a success in e-sports, more pros from CS:GO or Overwatch will likely follow.
