Valorant Champions 2024 set game records on YouTube and TikTok

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Valorant Champions 2024, the fourth world championship for Riot Games' popular shooter, wrapped up in Seoul on August 25th. Although this tournament didn’t break overall viewership records, it achieved the highest audience reach in Valorant’s history on YouTube and TikTok.

One of the major stories of the event's group stage was the early elimination of several top teams. Notably, Gen.G, who had reached the finals of Masters Madrid and won Masters Shanghai earlier in the year, failed to advance to the playoffs. Similarly, Paper Rex, the Singaporean team that finished as the silver medalists at Valorant Champions 2023, also did not make it past the group stage.

The standout team in the playoffs was undoubtedly the Chinese squad EDward Gaming. After a crucial victory over Trace Esports in the first round, they won three grueling series against Sentinels, Leviatán, and then overcame Team Heretics in the decisive series. The grand final went the distance, extending to all five maps, and EDward Gaming’s victory represented a major milestone for Chinese teams in the professional Valorant scene, just a year after Valorant’s official release in China.

The grand final of Valorant Champions 2024 attracted up to 1.41 million concurrent viewers, slightly surpassing our expectations for the match between EDward Gaming and Team Heretics. This tournament achieved the second-highest peak viewership in the Champions series, falling just 6% short of the record set by Valorant Champions 2022. Overall, it ranked fourth in peak viewership in the history of the game.

Valorant Champions 2024 was covered by the largest number of channels ever for a Valorant world championship. The tournament set new records for peak viewership on YouTube and TikTok, reaching 497,200 and 35,300 viewers, respectively. These figures are impressive, especially considering the tournament did not lead in overall popularity metrics. The increase in audience on YouTube and TikTok was largely driven by heightened activity on Asian channels.

Conversely, official Portuguese-language broadcasts on Twitch and YouTube experienced a significant drop compared to last year’s championship, primarily due to the absence of the Brazilian team LOUD. Official Japanese broadcasts, which is one of the key languages for Valorant esports, also saw declines due to the absence of any Japanese teams in Valorant Champions 2024.

The primary broadcast languages for the tournament were English, Japanese, and Spanish. Notably, the share of watch time for English and Japanese was the lowest in the history of the world championships. In contrast, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese languages achieved their highest viewership results ever for Valorant Champions.

The Vietnamese language set a new record for peak viewership, reaching 71,800 viewers, surpassing the previous high of 55,300 during Masters Madrid. Similarly, Chinese language viewership reached a new peak, rising from 37,500 during VCT 2024: China Kickoff to 42,900 viewers.

In terms of streaming platforms, Valorant Champions 2024 was notable for its diverse coverage, including its first-time broadcast on SOOP and CHZZK. Kick, which debuted at last year’s world championship with minimal viewership, also continued its presence this year.

During Valorant Champions 2024, viewership for prominent community casters declined notably. For instance, the average viewership on tarik’s channel, the most popular community caster in the discipline, dropped from 95,000 to 54,500 viewers. Similarly, mixwell, a former pro player and well-known Spanish streamer, saw a comparable decline.

The trends for official channels indicate a shift in where audiences are tuning in. The official English-language Valorant channel on Twitch experienced its lowest-ever number of Hours Watched, generating only 4.4 million HW in 2024 compared to 10.7 million HW in 2021. In contrast, the Valorant Champions Tour channel on YouTube saw a consistent increase in viewership.

The grand final's peak viewership might have been significantly higher had Sentinels participated. Additionally, the tournament’s viewer statistics were affected by the less favorable time zone for United States fans, which contributed to the lower viewership numbers on tarik’s stream. However, there is potential for improvement at the next world championship: Riot Games has announced that Valorant Champions 2025 will be held in Paris between September and October.