Game developer Riot Games has released viewership data on VCT Masters Madrid, the first international LAN event of the VALORANT season which ended in March.
According to Riot Games, the event recorded 3.1m peak concurrent viewers and an average minute audience of 1.1m, breaking records for a VALORANT Tournament.
VCT Masters Madrid gathered eight of the best VALORANT teams from its four main regions: Americas, China, EMEA and Pacific. Teams qualified for the event through Season Kickoff tournaments which commemorated the start of the 2024 competitive season. North American organisation Sentinels won the tournament by beating South Korean team Gen.G in the grand finals.
Interestingly, Riot Games’ peak viewership number is much larger than the ones available through third-party data platforms such as Esports Charts. Esports Charts has stated in the past that its figures do not include Chinese viewership platforms due to how difficult it is to access raw data.
Given that Riot Games has not made such claims, the implication is that this figure does include viewership statics from China. For context, Esports Charts’ data shows that around 1.69m viewers tuned into the event at its peak, which still makes it the most-watched VALORANT event in history.
Leo Faria, Global Head of VALORANT Esports, commented on the announcement: “Masters Madrid surpassed our expectations, and we’re using that momentum to implement exciting updates to our next event. We are introducing a new segment that will increase competition stakes by giving higher seeded teams the power to choose their opponents following the Swiss stage, thus placing their fate in their own hands.”
The next large international tournament of the VCT 2024 season is the Masters Shanghai, taking place in China later this month in the Mercedes-Benz Arena. This is, interestingly, the largest-ever venue for a VALORANT event, with space for more than 10,000 people.
