As Overwatch approaches five years of being an esport, there’s plenty of players who have made their money in the hit Blizzard FPS. However, who reigns supreme as the highest earner of all time?
While top-tier Overwatch pro play has existed since early 2016 with APEX, it didn’t really hit the fore-front of everyone’s minds until the Overwatch League in 2018. With big franchises fronting big money to play in the league, no matter what esport you followed, you took notice.
Now four seasons in, Overwatch fans are slowly seeing the fruits of the league. Players are earning big salaries, but there’s still hefty amounts of prize money on the line. If you win the title like San Francisco Shock did this year, that’s over $1 million right there for the team.
The OWL was shaken up a little bit in 2020 though. With the move to a homestand format, and then eventually monthly online cups, the prize money was a bit more eventually distributed. If you performed well throughout the year, you’d make bank.
Nevertheless, the top 20 is dominated by OWL champions. San Francisco Shock players make up the majority of the top earners, with the first 8 spots being taken by the team.
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Hong ‘Gesture’ Jae-hee and Park ‘Profit’ Joon-yeong, teammates on Seoul Dynasty both come in next to one another at the 9th and 10th spots, both tying for a win of over $290,000. Before joining Seoul Dynasty, they were both on Spitfire & GC Busan together, where they previously won APEX Season 4 and APAC Premier 2017.
The first Western player to appear on the lift this year was Moth, also a part of the incredibly dominating San Francisco Shock.
As the 2020 season progressed, players started to take over each other depending on their monthly performances. With up to$500,000 on the line every month in the Overwatch League, a string of wins from certain teams saw players rise to the top.
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This list only includes prize money that players have won while competing in Overwatch, and does not include any earnings from other titles, or their salary from their respective organizations.
The full top 20 list, according to esportsearnings.com, can be found below. It’ll be interesting to see how things change in 2021, especially with San Francisco Shock having so heavily dominated the OWL this season.
Top 20 highest earning Overwatch pros as of November, 2020
Position | Name | Nationality | Earnings |
---|---|---|---|
1st | Rascal | South Korea | $331,108.68 |
2nd | Striker | South Korea | $327,424.24 |
3rd | smurf | South Korea | $322,184.16 |
4th | ChoiHyoBin | South Korea | $319,657.20 |
5th | Moth | United States | $314,548.25 |
6th | super | United States | $312,948.02 |
7th | Viol2t | South Korea | $308,901.19 |
8th | Gesture | South Korea | $297,730.97 |
9th | Profit | South Korea | $297,730.97 |
10th | Bdosin | South Korea | $272,689.65 |
11th | Twilight | South Korea | $267,391.59 |
12th | Fury | South Korea | $222,400.43 |
13th | birdring | United States | $208,453.84 |
14th | Closer | United States | $197,480.74 |
15th | NUS | United States | $188,479.09 |
16th | SLIME | South Korea | $186,382.30 |
17th | Nevix | Sweden | $180,755.36 |
18th | Saebyeolbe | South Korea | $176,385.68 |
19th | Mano | South Korea | $168,959.28 |
20th | Libero | South Korea | $167,420.62 |
Check out our other top 20 highest earning pros list in various esports: