- The opening match of the VCT scored a new viewership record
- It surpassed the Copenhagen Masters in terms of the number of viewers
- This bodes very well for this year’s VALORANT Champions
Expectations were high for the opening match between Paper Rex and the Chinese team Edward Gaming.
VCT Opening Match Hits New Heights
Fans have long been waiting for the biggest VALORANT event of the year, and now that it has finally come, thousands flocked to see the debut of the Chinese region at VALORANT Champions 2022. The inclusion of Chinese teams in VCT had been long-awaited by many fans, so it should come as no one’s surprise that the opening match attracted a huge online crowd.
According to Esports Charts, the first map’s viewership peaked at 760 000 concurrent viewers, marking the highest viewership figure for the opening match of any international VCT event yet. This number was once again surpassed during the second map when the viewers went up to 786 000, which is more than the grand finals of VCT Masters Copenhagen.
The astonishing number of viewers was reached through a combination of official streams and co-streams across multiple platforms. This included a number of channels across Twitch and YouTube, as well as streams from various Japanese platforms, a country that has seen a large rise in the popularity of competitive VALORANT in the last year.
It’s interesting to take another look at the comparison between this event and the previously mentioned grand finals of VCT Masters Copenhagen. Although the VCT opening surpassed the 783 985 peak viewership number of the tournament, achieved during the grand final between FunPlus Phoenix and Paper Rex, the Copenhagen event had a record-low viewership.
This was due to several factors, like the event going head-to-head with several premier events. Additionally, many of the competing teams had already qualified for Champions, diminishing viewership’s interest. Also, teams representing major viewership regions like Japan and Brazil were eliminated early.
Nevertheless, the fact that the opening match of the VCT beat the Copenhagen Major in terms of viewership, still bodes well for the tournament. These numbers are undoubtedly boosted by Chinese viewers who have come to see their region represented. If the viewership continues to rise, we might even see the VCT 2022 beat its last year’s record, which saw 1 089 068 concurrent viewers.
