VALORANT hits record-low viewership at Masters Copenhagen

During the Grand Final of VCT Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen, FunPlus Phoenix and Paper Rex face-off garnered over 783,000 peak viewers — 280,000 fewer than at the previous Stage 1 Masters in Reykjavík.

The second major international Valorant competition of the year VCT 2022 Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen has come to a close with the European powerhouse FunPlus Phoenix being crowned champions. Despite featuring outstanding valorous combat in a completely sold-out venue, the event’s viewership seemed to be declining in comparison to prior VCT LAN tournaments. According to Esports Charts, the VCT Masters in Copenhagen attracted only 317,748 average viewers — the lowest average audience in all of VALORANT’s international history.

As for the most popular matches of the event, the Grand Final clash between the EMEA giants FunPlus Phoenix and APAC top seed Paper Rex registered over 783,000 peak viewers. The second on the list is the winner bracket final between Paper Rex and OpTic Gaming with more than 596,000 peak viewers. The third most-watched match at Masters Copenhagen was between Fnatic and Leviatán, peaking at 511,921 concurrent viewers. 

In comparison to the most watched Valorant LAN tournaments — VCT 2021 Stage 2 Masters Reykjavík and VCT Champions 2021, which both attracted over 1 million peak viewers, the event suffered heavily in popularity since not a single match was able to hit the 1 million mark. While there may be a number of factors contributing to the viewership decrease, given the substantial Valorant fan base in NA, it is safe to assume that one of them is the absence of NA teams in the finals.

VCT matches that topped 1 million viewers

The Grand Final of VCT 2021 Stage 2 Masters Reykjavík, VALORANT’s first international LAN event, has set the viewership record for the discipline — 1,085,850 peak viewers — that has been only broken by the Champions 2021 event with 1,089,000 peak viewers. The tournaments ranked comparably to some of the best-performing CS:GO events. 

At first, the Champions 2021 semifinal match between KRÜ Esports and Gambit Esports surpassed 1,060,257 peak viewers across all broadcasts before the record was broken the next day by the Ascend vs. Gambit Grand Final. A total of 46 million hours of VALORANT were watched across the entire Champions 2021 event — the highest among all VCT events, followed by VCT 2021 Masters 3 Berlin with 33.4 million and VCT 2022 Stage 1 Masters Reykjavik with 33.2 million hours watched.

The Grand Final of VCT 2022 Stage 1 Masters Reykjavík was the most recent match that crossed a million mark in viewership. The fierce battle between OpTic and LOUD accumulated 1,066,887 peak viewers — the third highest viewership in any VALORANT event.

Header: Riot Games