Visit the Betway sportsbook for the latest sports betting odds and lines.

While maybe not yet at the financial levels of traditional sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, and MLB, the esports industry is growing at an incredible rate, with reported annual revenue across the industry eclipsing $1.1 billion.

And with regular seven- and eight-figure tournament prize pots across tournaments centered around games such as Dota 2, League of Legends, and Call of Duty, there are astronomical sums to be won by elite teams and individual gamers. But which esports teams are the most successful overall, and which are the most popular among fans?

Comparing overall winnings and social media sentiment scores, we’ve been able to determine which gaming teams enjoy the most esports success.

The highest earning Esports organizations

With such vast sums of money on offer across the esports industry, we’ve delved into which organizations have claimed the largest chunk of available winnings to date. And with revenue pushing $40 million, there’s only one winner: Team Liquid, who compete primarily in Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitions.

However, it’s worth noting that Team Liquid has entered nearly twice as many tournaments as the next five most successful teams combined, earning an average of $17,566 per competition.

Placing second, we have OG, with revenue of $36.08 million from 134 tournaments – again, mostly Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. That’s $269,247 per tournament, more than 15 times more than Team Liquid earns per outing.

Next up, Evil Geniuses has picked up $25.86 million from 927 tournaments, followed by Team Spirit, who’s earned $20.09 million from 168 competitions. Meanwhile in fifth, Natus Vincere ($18.45 million) is just ahead of Virtus.pro ($18.33 million), after competing in 603 and 579 tournaments, respectively.

Rounding out the ten most successful esports organizations, we have Fnatic, with a healthy $17.79 million won from the 1,027 tournaments they’ve entered, Team Secret with $16.39 million from 332, FaZe Clan with $12.53 million from 523, and Cloud9 with $11.39 million from 871.

Notably, PSG Esports ($15.93 million) and Vici Gaming ($15.40 million) have also earned more than $11 million, but they’re less active across US tournaments.

The most popular Esports organizations

We’ve compared the most successful esports organizations by total winnings, but which are the most popular among online audiences?

By analyzing social media data across Twitch, Instagram and Twitter, we can reveal that FaZe Clan is the most popular esports organization, with almost 18 million followers, followed by Team SoloMid (5.22 million). In fact, FaZe Clan leads the way with the largest following across each of the prominent social media platforms.

Closely behind, OpTic Gaming has over 4 million combined social media followers, with the bulk coming from Twitter - 3.20 million, the second most of all esports teams.

Meanwhile, the Spanish professional esports organization, G2 Esports, places fourth, with over 3 million followers across Instagram, Twitch, and Twitter. And, ranking fifth and sixth, respectively, we have NRG Esports (2.99 million) and Fnatic (2.79 million).

Next up is 100 Thieves (2.40 million), Natus Vincere (2.03 million), Cloud9 (1.97 million), and Team Liquid (1.91 million) which round out the ten most popular esports teams.

The most loved Esports organizations

Finally, which organizations are the most adored among online audiences?

Using positive sentiment data drawn from social listening tool Linkfluence, we can reveal that Cloud9 (30.90%) and Fnatic (30.20%) are the most loved esports organizations, with just short of one in three online conversations about each team considered positive in nature. However, interestingly, Fnatic ranks just below Cloud9, despite having roughly 800,000 more followers, suggesting that follower count doesn’t necessarily equate to popularity.

Meanwhile, Beastcoast (27.10%) places third, with over a quarter of online conversations considered positive – and with just 123,900 followers, we’re again seeing that social following has minimal impact on how well-loved an organization is.

Ranking fourth and fifth, respectively, we have mousesports (23.10%) and FaZe Clan (21.40%). Curiously, mousesports (mouz) has one of the smallest follower counts, just 315,100, while FaZe Clan has the largest of all organizations on our list – a mega 17,995,000.

Next up, OpTic Gaming earns a positive sentiment score of 19.90%, ahead of Team Envy (15.80%) and Astralis (15.30%), while FURIA Esports (14.00%) and 100 Thieves (13.40%) round out the ten most popular esports teams.

With the next major esports tournament only ever around the corner, it’ll be interesting to see whether we see a shift in the rankings following the upcoming Call of Duty League Major 4 Tournament, Halo Championship Regional Series, and Smash Factor 9 event.

Methodology

To determine the most successful esports organizations, we collected total winnings data from Esports Earnings. This enabled us to rank teams depending on how much they’ve earned, as well as record how many tournaments they’ve competed in to work out average earnings per competition.

To determine the most popular esports organizations, we collected positive sentiment data using social listening tool Linkfluence. This measured how many conversations across social media are considered positive in nature. Each esports team was then ranked accordingly.