Despite ongoing uncertainty about when it will actually happen, Dota 2's The International 2020 has broken its prize pool record today. At the time of writing it's sitting at an impressive $34,393,631, with last year's total coming in at $34,440,068.
It's likely to keep going: given that The International 2020 will likely be postponed into 2021, Valve could feasibly keep it going for much longer than previous years. The Battle Passes are usually available until shortly after the event itself, but with no scheduled event, that could be a while.
"In following how the pandemic has been developing globally, the recent increase in the unpredictability of COVID-19 means we can’t yet commit to new dates for TI10 and the DPC," the official Dota 2 Twitter account tweeted earlier this week. "We share your eagerness in returning to these events, and will announce updates as soon as we can."
The new milestone makes The International 2020 the largest ever prize pool in esports history. That's no surprise: before today, the top five largest prize pools were entirely made up of The International tourneys, with the 2019 Fortnite World Cup Finals coming in at number six, according to esportsearnings.com.
