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2023 marked the first year of the Valorant Champions Tour's (VCT) new format, and teams from all over the world brought their A-game. However, some were more successful than others in delivering results. It goes without saying that they gained the most popularity over the year, as well as the fattest cheques.
This article covers the five highest-earning Valorant teams in 2023.
Which is the highest-earning Valorant team in 2023?
5) DRX
Total earnings in 2023: $237,415
DRX finished 3rd - 4th at LOCK//IN Valorant Esports' first international event with 32 participating teams. Then they went on to have a dominant performance at the VCT 2023: Pacific League, where they ended up losing out on the winners title by one map.
Surprisingly, their performance dropped a lot after that, as they finished 7th - 8th at Masters Tokyo and 5th - 6th at Champions 2023 in Los Angeles. Because of how big the Champions 2023 price pool was, the team took home $85,000 from the tournament.
4) LOUD
Total earnings in 2023: $445,000
LOUD started their 2023 journey with a second-place finish at LOCK//IN and followed it up by VCT 2023: Americas. This cemented their place as the best Valorant team in the region by a large margin.
LOUD's performance saw a dip at Valorant Masters Tokyo, but the squad managed to grab a third-place finish at Champions 2023. For this, they received a massive cheque of $250,000.
3) Paper Rex
Total earnings in 2023: $645,000
Paper Rex was knocked out in the first tournament of 2023 by Cloud9. Their gameplay in the first part of their VCT Pacific run also appeared to be underwhelming and lacked coordination. However, with the addition of Ilya "something" Petrov, the team began to function like a well-oiled machine and went on to win the tournament.
Paper Rex finished third at Valorant Masters Tokyo and second at Champions 2023, taking home $125,000 and $400,000, respectively.
2) Fnatic
Total earnings in 2023: $645,000
Fnatic started off the year as the team to beat. Their year started with a tournament win at VCT LOCK//IN in Sao Paulo, where they defeated LOUD 3-2. At home, in Europe, they finished second at the EMEA League, outshone by Team Liquid, in what was the only burst of form shown by the latter throughout the year.
Fnatic went on to take home the title of Masters Tokyo winners, taking down Evil Geniuses in a decisive 3-0 victory and winning a cash prize of $350,000. They were one of the favorites coming into Valorant Champions 2023, but only managed to secure a fourth-place finish at the biggest tournament of the year.
1) Evil Geniuses
Total earnings in 2023: $1,250,000
Evil Geniuses is a team that not many fans had on their radar at the start of the year. At least not with the roster that lifted the Champions 2023 trophy. They were knocked out in the second round of LOCK//IN and had an atrocious start to the Americas League.
The addition of Max "Demon1" Mazanov had a similar effect on Evil Geniuses as the addition of something had on Paper Rex. The roster finished third in VCT Americas, second at Masters Tokyo, and crossed every hurdle to emerge the world champions of Valorant in 2023. They took home a cheque of $1,000,000 as a prize for winning Champions 2023.
