Game developer Riot Games has revealed the current team rankings for the top-selling VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) team capsules that were released earlier this year.
Announced during VCT Champions in Seoul, South Korea, UK-based esports organisation Fnatic has retained the number one spot for VCT EMEA as of August 2024, followed by the French teams Gentle Mates and Karmine Corp. For VCT Americas, Sentinels is the team leading the chart, with Leviatán in second and G2 Esports in third.
The announcement was revealed on the official X page for VALORANT esports and the team capsules will be on sale until September 12th, two weeks after the end of the tournament. Exact details as to how many capsules each VCT team has sold have not been disclosed.
The VCT capsules are in-game cosmetic bundles that were introduced in February. Each capsule contains a Classic skin, an exclusive gun buddy and spray set, as well as a custom player card co-created by the 44 VALORANT Champions Tour partner teams. Half of the generated profits are shared with the teams, as the goal was to increase revenues for esports organisations and further diversify their sources of income.
Last year’s profit-sharing VCT bundles amounted to a total of $33m (~£26.1m) which was split among the teams, with each one receiving more than $1m (~£800,000) on average.
Riot Games also revealed the rankings for its other two partner regions — VCT Pacific and VCT CN, the latter of which was introduced this year. The former is led by Singaporean organisation Paper Rex, followed by Korean team T1 and Japanese team ZETA Division.
In the Chinese region, on the other hand, the organisation with the most sales is EDward Gaming, with BiliBili Gaming in second and Trace Esports in third. Earlier this year, EDG made headlines when it generated $600,000 (~£471,600) in revenue with a live 4-hour shopping campaign on Douyin (TikTok China), selling over 74,000 team bundles.
After a week of stage games, VCT Champions has registered a peak viewership of 653,468, according to the analytics platform Esports Charts, with an average viewership of 376,964. While the viewership is currently lower compared to last year’s numbers, teams have yet to enter the playoffs stage, which will very likely register increased viewership.
