Riot Games has released its internal numbers for viewership around VCT Masters Madrid and revealed millions more watched the tournament than previously known.
The Masters Madrid finals shattered the record for the most-watched Valorant esports event in terms of peak viewers during its final series, bringing in 1.6 million peak viewers, according to Esports Charts.
However, that number does not include every streaming service and does not count viewers from some countries like China. On a May 9 update announcement about the next Masters event, Riot revealed its internal viewership metrics and claimed the event brought in 3.1 million peak concurrent viewers.
The developer also claimed the tournament had an average of 1.1 million viewers, which is double what VCT Masters Tokyo brought in last year.
This is not the first time Riot has stated its internal numbers around esports events do not match the publically available statistics. In 2023, the company claimed Valorant Champions 2023 was the most-watched tournament at the time because of the bump in Chinese viewers. Last year was also the first time Chinese teams competed at every Valorant esports international event.
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Riot has not revealed its methods or data streams for its internal viewership metrics.
Masters Madrid had one of the more stacked esports organization lineups in Valorant history, with popular teams like Sentinels, Gen.G Paper Rex, LOUD, and Karmine Corp all making deep runs.
The impressive numbers from Riot are further proof that the Valorant circuit’s expansion into China, new format, and expanding co-streamer lineup were worth the investment.
While the numbers are impressive, they are also dwarfed by Riot’s other esports endeavor, League of Legends. The esport’s 2023 international tournaments, the Mid-Season Invitational and World Championship brought in 2.3 and 6.4 million peak viewers, respectively, according to Esports Charts.
