The International 10 might be happening sooner than the original projections.
In a larger update regarding the future of the Dota Pro Circuit and the plans for the 2021 season, Valve revealed that plans regarding TI10 had changed slightly. The good news is that the event’s estimated start date has actually been moved forward.
This is a bit of good news and follows Valve previously projecting TI10 to take place in September 2021. No exact date has been revealed, but the entire 2021 Dota Pro Circuit schedule was revealed in the blog post. The final major of the season is expected to run from June 2 to 13, which would line up with an August start date.
No contingency plans were touched upon and it is unclear what might happen if the current health situation lingers. Should these troubles continue, odds are that the season would be extended and The International would be pushed back.
Scandinavian Dota 2 fans are likely the biggest beneficiaries of this news. The International 10 was originally set to take place in August 2020 in Stockholm, but the event was delayed indefinitely. Though there was no doubt that the event would return eventually, it seemed as though Stockholm was set to simply miss out. Instead, Sweden will get the chance to host the largest Dota 2 event of the year.
That is completely unknown at this time. The TI10 Battle Pass generated over $130 million for Valve, with $40 million of that being earmarked for the TI10 prize pool. TI10 was pushed back far enough that another battle pass will likely arrive in 2021, but nobody knows what will happen to the $40 million generated in 2020.
The best use of the money, according to most insiders, would be spreading it across the upcoming Dota 2 leagues over the coming years. This would help address the inflated importance of The International, where the only measure of qualifying for the event.
Time will tell whether Valve plans to combine that $40 million with whatever gets generated by the next battle pass, or if the company has something else in store.
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