This month's The International 2019 Dota 2 tournament is already the eSports tournament with the highest prize pool of all time, having surpassed the Fortnite World Cup, which briefly took the crown earlier this year. However, massive financial success aside, viewers watching from home and fans live at Shanghai's Mercedes-Benz Arena alike have found plenty to complain about since the event began.

First and foremost, the in-arena crowds have been generating all sorts of predominately negative discussion online. The main accusation in these posts is that the largely Chinese audience (a natural result of the event taking place in Shanghai) is cheering louder for the teams from China than from other parts of the world. While comparisons to other sporting events don't fully hold up, given the, well, international nature of The International makes it more than just a routine competition in which one team has a home court advantage over another. Enthusiastic home crowds are, and always will be, a staple of sporting events for as long as they exist.

That said, it's understandable that the large number of online viewers from all over the world might feel like their teams of choice are getting a dampened reception and being put at a disadvantage. A massive event like The International is where you want to see your team shine brightest, whether that feeling is justified or not.

Complicating the matter, a recent post shows a video taken from directly inside the arena of a match between two Western teams, during which the crowd is undeniably hyped. According to commenters, the Chinese stream of the event includes more crowd noise, given that an early English-language stream picked up Chinese in-arena commentators when the audience levels were higher, leading to complaints about the production of the stream. Of course, being Reddit, this shift in narrative couldn't happen without the accusations (some surely in jest, some probably not) of paid cheerers.

Beyond the crowds that may or may not still be cheering louder for their local teams, multiple posts online by some fans themselves who are attending the event live complain of poor organization, with massive lines for player autographs and escalators to traverse the arena, as well as poorly communicated info about which players would be signing and when.

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This comes in the wake of existing criticism of event logistics, after it became clear that scalpers were easily able to get a hold of large numbers of tickets, which both lowered in-arena attendance and raised ticket prices.

Any event with attendance in excess of 10,000 is bound to run into some speed bumps. Given the current volume of complaints, it may be fair to assume that this year's International could have been better organized, although forming an opinion solely based on internet backlash is also almost always a bad idea.

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