Blizzard Announces Plans For WoW Esports 15 Year Anniversary With Over $1.8 Million On The Line

Note: Activision Blizzard is still under investigation by the state of California for serious harassment charges. CEO Bobby Kotick is alleged to have known about such actions within his company – and performed some himself – and shielded the perpetrators from consequences.

It would seem it’s time to start thinking about World of Warcraft esports again, or at least Blizzard would like for you to. If that’s your jam, then you’ll probably want to know what they’ve got planned for 2022. The answer would be “quite a bit”, which makes sense, what with this being the 15th anniversary of WoW esports and all. Granted, it’s not the 15th anniversary of all the various tournaments. After all, some of those came in the last year or so – Classic Arena, anyone? - but still, it’s a big number.

With this in mind, Blizzard has outlined some of its plans for 2022. First, it should be noted that they are hoping to hold an in-person event this summer. Prior to that, qualifiers and regular seasons will continue to be online. Once summer hits, they hope to go live with the Shadowlands Season 3 championships in both the Arena World Championship and the Mythic Dungeon International.

The next thing of note is that they’ve announced there will be over $1.8 million in prize money shared across all the tournaments. That’s the Arena World Championship, the Mythic Dungeon International, and the Classic Arena Tournament. The full breakdown of how the money will be divvied up can be found on the WoW site, but if I’ve done my math correctly, it’ll be approximately $660k for the AWC, $630k for the MDI, and $100k for the CAT, based on the numbers listed on the page. I know that doesn’t shake out to the full $1.8 million, but the post does mention additional events planned for the post-season.