The nail-biter Grand Finals match of VALORANT Masters Madrid set up a new record for the most-watched VALORANT esports game ever.

 

Data from esports statistics provider Esports Charts had shown that the 3-2 classic between Sentinels and Gen.G had over 1.6 million peak viewers – the most-watched event for the esport.

“Masters Madrid exceeded the previous record set by Valorant Champions 2022 in terms of live viewer engagement. The former record was established during the decisive match of the 2022 season’s final event: the triumph of LOUD attracted up to 1.505 million concurrent viewers,” Esports Charts noted in its report.

Based on the site’s data, Masters Madrid even beat several Champions tournaments in terms of viewership. For instance, VALORANT Champions 2022 had over 1.5 million, LOCK//IN Sao Paulo had 1.4 million, Champions 2023 had 1.2 million, and Champions 2021 had 1 million peak views.

“Notably, VCT 2024: Masters Madrid achieved one of the highest results in the discipline in number of unique broadcast channels. Last year, Masters Tokyo and VALORANT Champions were broadcast on 200+ channels, whereas Masters Madrid saw coverage on 300+ channels,” Esports Charts noted.

They also note that some of the factors that contributed to this record-breaking milestone is the involvement of community streamers. The most popular among them would have to be the fiance of Masters Madrid champion and Sentinels player Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, Kyedae Shymko.

THE SEN EFFECT

Even before their record-breaking – and now iconic – win, Sentinels, alongside Latin American team LOUD, have been one of the driving forces behind this huge increase in viewership, Esports Charts noted.

During the VCT 2024 Americas Kickoff, the grand final featuring both teams garnered 823K Peak Viewers – the highest for a Kickoff event. However, both teams showed their utter viewership power during Masters Madrid.

 

“At its peak, the match between Sentinels and LOUD reached 1.06M Peak Viewers, becoming the first game of the Masters Madrid event to reach a seven-figure peak viewership. Even more impressively, the game was the most popular non-Finals match for a Valorant tournament ever,” Esports Charts noted.

Sentinels have been a dominant force throughout Masters – from defeating popular EMEA teams as well as one of Pacific’s crowd favorites, Paper Rex. However, it was not the same for LOUD – who lost their first outing against Gen.G and won against the two Chinese teams in the competition: EDward Gaming and FunPlus Phoenix.

“Heading into the Playoffs, the two best teams of the Americas had to face off once more for the Upper Bracket Semifinals. The match would determine which team would fall to the Lower Bracket and which team would face Gen.G Gaming in the upper bracket final, and excitement was high for the game,” Esports Charts noted.