Time for The International 2023: when, where, who?
13 October 2023
We have reached the final few months of the year, which means that it’s once again time for The International. The concluding tournament of the current Dota Pro Circuit season is Dota 2’s biggest and most prestigious event of the year, and the event that players and fans are looking forward to every season. After a record-breaking 2022 edition, during which an unprecedented 1.7 million viewers saw Tundra Esports defeat Team Secret in a thrilling final, The International 2023 is now upon us. The twelfth edition of the event is kicking off on Thursday, October 12th, and will conclude on Sunday, October 29th. In the build-up to the start of the tournament, we’re bringing you the most important information to help you follow all of the action, including the schedule, the participating teams, and the best ways to watch one of the biggest events in international esports.
Stages
Valve, the studio behind Dota 2 and the organizer of The International, has opted for a different format this year, when compared to previous years. The International 2023 as a whole consists of three distinct phases:
- Group Stage: Thursday, October 12th, to Sunday, October 15th.
- Play-offs weekend: Friday, October 20th, to Sunday, October 20th.
- Finals weekend (Main Event): Friday, October 27th, Sunday, October 29th.
Apart from the Finals weekend, the entire event is played at the Seattle Convention Center’s Summit in Seattle, in Washington State in the United States. The Finals weekend takes place in the same city, but at a different venue, namely the Climate Pledge Arena.
Participating teams
Obviously, one of the most important pieces of information is which teams are participating in The International 2023. A total of 20 teams will be present in Seattle, where the tournament is being organized, of which 12 qualified through the Dota Pro Circuit and 8 qualified through regional qualifiers.
GROUP A |
GROUP B |
GROUP C |
GROUP D |
9Pandas |
Azure Ray |
beastcoast |
Keyd Stars |
Entity |
BetBoom Team |
Gaimin Gladiators |
PSG Quest |
Evil Geniuses |
Shopify Rebellion |
LGD Gaming |
Talon Esports |
Team SMG |
Team Liquid |
nouns |
TSM |
Team Spirit |
Thunder Awaken |
Virtus.pro |
Tundra Esports |
Prize money
At the time of writing this article, the total prize pool for The International 2023 sits at $ 2,969,523. This number consists of the initially announced prize pool of $ 1,600,000 plus 25% of all Compendium sales. That is considerably less than last year’s prize pool, which reached $ 18,930,775 by the time the first battle started.
Where to watch The International 2023?
As you might expect for one of esports’ biggest events, The International 2023 is streamed in different languages and on different platforms. All of the tournament’s stages can be viewed with English, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish commentary, and all of the action will be available via Twitch and Youtube. Chinese and Spanish-speaking viewers can also get their The International 2023 streams via Bilibili and Facebook, respectively. The organization will be hoping to attract even more viewers than last season, when a total of 1.7 million unique viewers tuned in to the event.