The top nine grossing teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive made more than $7.5 million combined in tournament earnings in 2016, according to a recent report by Forbes.
The industry, for the first time, saw two major tournaments, which featured $1 million prize purses each, with the winners taking home $500,000. New tournaments, such as ELeague and the Esports Championship Series, emerged while existing competitions like ESL Pro League increased their prize pools.
The Forbes article, which counts the total earnings from various tournaments, reveals that the Brazilian lineup from SK Gaming (formerly a part of Luminosity Gaming) is the highest-earning team, making over $1.9 million in 2016.
Other teams that make the list are Virtus.Pro, Astralis, Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Dignitas and Fnatic. OpTic Gaming, which won the second season of ELeague in December, is the only North American team to make the list, earning $400,000 from that tournament and $789,000 total in the calendar year.
Astralis' recent win at the ELeague Major in January netted them $500,000 to kick off the year. "The money means nothing," Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth said in an interview on Sunday. "When we won, I didn't even know how much money we had won, so it means kind of nothing."