Johan “N0tail” Sundstein is the richest player in esports. If you haven’t heard of him read on to find out more.
Esports is something new. While 20 years ago, gaming competitively was frowned upon today it’s an industry worth over a billion dollars and it’s expected to grow even further. You can certainly make a living out of it but that doesn’t mean it’s easy as it takes a lot to be at the top. There's no better example than Johan “N0tail” Sundstein - the richest esports player (or at least the one with the most earnings).
The Danish player started playing DotA casually and then moved into a competitive career in Heroes of Newerth. For anyone unfamiliar, HoN was basically Dota 2, before Dota 2 came out. N0tail had quite a lot of success in HoN but the game’s competitive scene was seeing less interest at the time so he considered an alternative.
In 2012 he transitioned to Dota 2 with his HoN teammates under the banner of Fnatic. Unlike many other pro players, Sundstein hasn’t played for a larger number or teams – just 4. After Fnatic, he played for Team Secret, Cloud9 and (monkey) Business. The latter turned into OG in 2015 and that’s where N0tail’s real success began.
So far he has attended The International four times, winning two of them. No other team except OG has won the big Dota 2 event twice and they’ve really managed to set the bar high. The International is an event known for its record-breaking prize pool. In 2018 and 2019 (when N0tail won) the total pools were $25,532,177 and $34,330,068 respectively. This meant OG won a total of $26,854,339 from the two events alone.
Combine the earning from the two TIs with numerous other events he has won and N0tail’s earning are sitting at nearly $7 million ($6,969,737.80 to be precise). That's quite the fortune for a 27-year old. Most recently he was interviewed on the British Broadcasting Corporation where Sundstein shed more light on his story.
Compared to some of the most successful players in other popular esports titles makes it clear that N0tail is way ahead:
- StaCraft II - Joona "Serral" Sotala - $897,536.55
- League of Legends - Lee "Faker" Sang Hyeok - $1,257,615.87
- CS:GO - Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen - $1,856,322.74
- Fortnite - Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf - $3,154,061.72
In the meantime, esports is still far away from the earnings of athletes in traditional sports.
- Poker - Bryn Kenney - $56 million
- Basketball - Michael Jordan - $93.2 million
- Tennis - Roger Federer - $130 million
- Formula One - Lewis Hamilton - $500 million
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- READ MORE: BTS Leak the Dota 2 Overwatch System
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