Iconic esports tournament The International, which serves as the world championship for DOTA 2 esports, has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  2020 marks the 10th year of TI, and the first time it has ever been postponed. The DOTA 2 team made a post on the game's official website explaining the tough decision to postpone the event, which reads as follows: 

"After extensive consideration of the global health emergency stemming from COVID-19, we have made the difficult choice to delay The International. We have been exploring various date possibilities, but it is likely that the event will need to happen in 2021. Given the highly volatile landscape for local gathering restrictions, virus trajectory, and global travel policies, we don’t expect to have enough confidence to communicate firm dates in the near future. In the meantime, we are working on restructuring the DPC season for the fall, and will be providing more information as soon as we have it.

The 10th International prize pool will be funded by 25% of sales of the next Battle Pass, which we are planning to release soon instead of closer to the event itself. However, with our team working from home and things taking longer to complete, the release date of the Battle Pass will be at least a couple of weeks later than usual.

We hope everyone in the Dota community is staying as safe as possible, and look forward to a time when we can once again welcome everyone to enjoy the spectacle of The International."

Last year, The International took place in Shanghai, China from August 15 - August 25. The prize pool for the tournament was a whopping $33,391,772. The champion of TI 2019, OG, won about $15,000,000 on its way to becoming the first back to back TI champion in history.