VALORANT Champions 2024, the game’s largest international tournament, has closed off this year’s VALORANT season with 1.4m peak viewers, a roughly 120,000 increase compared to its predecessor.
According to esports data platform Esports Charts, the event garnered 441,971 average viewers and nearly 50m watch hours across its 106-hour run time.
This year’s Champions tournament took place from August 1st until August 25th in the COEX Artium and the INSPIRE Arena in Seoul, South Korea. The competition saw 16 top teams from each VALORANT esports region compete for a combined prize pool of $2.25m (~£1.7m).
In terms of peak viewership, the event has become the fourth-most popular VALORANT tournament in the history of the esport. The 2024 edition ranks even better across all Champions competitions, only outperformed by Champions 2022 at 1.5m peak viewers.
Interestingly, Champions 2024 was not the most-watched event of this year’s VALORANT esports competitive calendar. This trophy goes to VCT 2024: Masters Madrid, which has recorded the highest peak viewership of any VALORANT tournament so far at almost 1.7m.
Masters Madrid’s impressive viewership can be partially attributed to the large fanbase of its champion, North American esports organisation Sentinels. Similarly, Sentinels became the third-most watched team of Champions 2024 with 10.8m hours watched.
However, second and first place in this category goes to this year’s VALORANT Champions EDward Gaming (13.4m) and runner-up Team Heretics (17.4m). Moreover, the Grand Final between the two was the most popular match of the competition.
Unsurprising for an international event, most fans tuned into the English broadcast with 662,782 peak viewers, followed by the Spanish (185,838) and Japanese (168,506) livestreams. Although streaming platform Twitch attracted the largest audience slice with 859,511 peak viewers, a significant portion of fans (497,209) watched via YouTube.
The format and event locations for next year’s VALORANT Champions Tour have already been revealed, with Masters events to be held in Bangkok and Toronto and Champions heading to Paris, France.
Until then, the game will be in its OFF//SEASON, during which fans can watch a variety of VALORANT competitions, including four Ascension tournaments and the Game Changers World Championship.
