I did the same with Counter-Strike what seems like a lifetime ago. I feel the world was a lot different back then. My team was the first team to have a sponsors

I did the same with Counter-Strike what seems like a lifetime ago. I feel the world was a lot different back then. My team was the first team to have a sponsorship by Steelseries (they were a tiny company back then), and the numbers were super small. If I told any of the current top players how much we made back then with our sponsorships (which included Samsung and Intel as well), they would laugh. These days, you have CS:GO players making 5 figures a month, supplementing that with another 5 figures by streaming, and genuinely living like rockstars. It gets better if you look at LoL, because their numbers are fairly larger too (about 2:1 still, even if CSGO is growing significantly). The amount of work that has to go into getting yourself into a top team is insane these days. Lan houses have for the most part gone away, and finding people with the mentality required to create such a team is hard. Those who do it are certainly well compensated, because there's a ton of money in streaming and brands want to be involved. But there's a chasm between being extremely good and being on the teams you hear about. For the first, life certainly isn't as glamorous.