The Grand Final of the biggest Valorant tournament of the year – Valorant champions, set a new viewership record for the game. The Match had a concurrent viewership of almost 1.1 million surpassing the previous record by a few thousand viewers.
Acend took on Gambit in a 5 map affair and it was Acend that took home the crown in the final. Despite being the favourites, both Sentinels and Envy had to bow out in the group stage of Valorant Champions but that didn’t hinder the viewership numbers as the 1 million mark was crossed easily.
Until now the most viewers a Valorant game ever had was 1,085,580 which was hit during VCT Stage 2 Masters game between Sentinels and fnatic. Acend vs Gambit had a peak of 1,089,068 viewers.
Much of this was also owed to watch parties by community figures such as Shroud, Tarik, Mixwell etc. Another reason was Twitch drops being enabled throughout the tournament, viewers had to watch an hour of the stream from December 1 to December 11 to get a VCT Spark Spray and an hour of the grand final would net them a VCT Spark, Buddy. This was like the days of old when Souvenir drops were possible during CS:GO Majors.
Considering this was the first full year of the game being played competitively, these numbers are a sign of good things to come for the game. Riot already announced the roadmap for 2022 and they plan on expanding the game and hold tournaments for Women too in the future.
According to escharts.com, the most popular Valorant events have been:
- Valorant Champions – 1,089,068
- VCT Stage 2 Masters – 1,085,850
- VCT Stage 3 Masters – 811,370
- Twitch Rivals – 692,277
- 100 Thieves Invitational – 443,637
Champions was the final event for 2021 and Riot Games will start the new season in 2022 with even more aplomb.
