VCT Masters Tokyo drew second-lowest Valorant viewership — but fans are still pleased

VCT Masters Tokyo failed to command the same viewership as the previous two international events, but the Valorant community is still happy with the numbers.

The Japanese event came to a close on June 25 as Fnatic beat Evil Geniuses 3-0 to win their second international title and move up to first in the prize money ranking.

The EMEA-NA showdown had a peak of 830,369 viewers, according to data firm Esports Charts. This is the third-lowest peak viewership for an international Valorant event, beating only the peaks from VCT 2022 Masters Copenhagen (783,985) and VCT 2021 Masters Berlin (811,370).

More significant, however, is the fact that the tournament averaged 338,447 viewers — the second-worst average viewership in the game’s history. It also had only 27.9 million hours watched, which is the second-lowest for a tournament with at least 12 teams.

A drop in viewership was expected for VCT Masters Tokyo, the first event of this kind in the Asia-Pacific region. This was uncharted territory, and many feared that the tournament would go down as the least-watched Valorant event of all time because the time zone made it difficult for Western fans to watch the matches.

With that in mind, many look at the tournament’s viewership numbers as a sign that Valorant has a healthy esports ecosystem that commands a stable audience, regardless of where tournaments take place.

“Where are all the people who said viewership would flop and that this would be the lowest viewed lan so far?” one user wrote on Reddit. “In my opinion, the crowd and production for Tokyo were the best we’ve had so far. Would love to have one more LAN here next year.”

VCT Masters Tokyo viewership vs other events

It is important to point out that Esports Charts does not include viewership from China, where interest in the tournament might have been piqued by EDward Gaming’s surprise deep run in the tournament.

In an article published in December 2022, Esports Charts explained that “it is impossible” to calculate Chinese viewership numbers accurately using open data as the country’s popular streaming platforms do not show the number of viewers tuned in, “but rather a quite abstract metric named The Heat.”

Riot Games has not yet commented on Masters Tokyo’s viewership numbers, but it seems clear that the developer supports the idea of Asia continuing to run international LAN events. Shortly after the Masters event came to an end, Red Bull Japan announced that the 2023 edition of the Red Bull Home Ground will take place in the country.