Valorant has always pulled in massive viewership for major events that feature multiple top teams, and the recently concluded Valorant Conquerors Championship is a perfect example of how those numbers keep growing even in a mostly online space.
The final confrontation between Velocity Gaming and Global Esports reached a peak concurrent viewership of 50K, an all-time record for a regional matchup in Valorant. It’s a rewarding outcome considering the competition’s exclusive event in the South Asian region, dubbed as the “VAL-Clasico”
At the end of May, Riot had announced its collaboration with Nodwin Gaming to give South Asia, their first-ever official Championship event, a part of the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) Circuit.
Across the main VCC event, Velocity Gaming (VLT/India), Global Esports (GE/India), Enigma Gaming (Enigma/India), and Team Exploit (TE/Pakistan) were able to further qualify for the Finals playoffs where we saw VLT maintain a flawless run over the Upper bracket while Enigma was knocked out from the contention. Global Esports indeed made light work of Team Exploit in the Lower Bracket to set up a Grand Final Clash with their regional counterparts, Velocity Gaming.
As said, the VAL-Clasico was the one everyone was talking about, potentially the greatest series in the Indian Valorant scene. Global Esports secured a spot at the APAC Last Chance Qualifier and a lion’s share of $16,500 USD. The concurrent viewership of 50,000 was indeed powered by a dual-stream set up by Nodwin, in English and the regional language, Hindi as well.
Right across from Valorant’s beta access, we witnessed a plethora of professionals from Counter Strike : Global Offensive make their switch to Riot’s brand new first person shooter and since then it has been a dream run for the game itself and the community.
You can attribute a number of factors into why Sunday’s finale broke the viewership ceiling. Whether it was the prospect of Global Esports becoming the first ever Indian team to qualify further towards the VCT Champions, or just because it was the mayhem triggered by Ganesh “SkRossi” Gangadhar and his heroics which bolstered the odds in favour of GE.
