VCT 2021 Stage 3 Masters Berlin — Viewership overview

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The Valorant Champions Tour 2021: Stage 3 Masters Berlin has wrapped up recently and although the tournament hasn’t outperformed the VCT 2021: Stage 2 Masters Reykjavík, it managed to break its own viewership record and place itself as the second most-watched Valorant esports event so far.

The $700,000 LAN tournament took place across the third week of September in Berlin, Germany, where the top 15 teams of VCT 2021 Stage 3 battled it out in a double-elimination bracket. 

The competition ended up with Russian Gambit Esports sweeping Team Envy 3-0 and taking the win, together with the ticket to the Champions 2021, the highest and concluding competition of the official Valorant tournament circuit by Riot Games. 

Record-breaking G2 vs. Sentinels rivalry

During 86 hours of broadcast, the VCT 2021 Stage 3 Masters Berlin attracted 389.9K Average Viewers, who have contributed over 33.4M Hours Watched. 

At its peak during the G2 Esports vs. Sentinels matchup on Day 6 of the tournament, the event marked more than 811.3K concurrent viewers. This makes it the second-most-popular Valorant match after the grand final of the Stage 2 Masters Reykjavík, which attracted over 1M Peak Viewers.

The second most-spectated match of Stage 3 Masters Berlin took place three days earlier, during the identical group stage matchup of G2 Esports and Sentinels, drawing an almost identical volume of spectators — 808.2K Peak Viewers. 

The grand final match between Team Envy and Gambit ended up being third with 692.4K Peak Viewers. It is rather unusual to see the group stage matches achieve markedly higher numbers than the grand final. This could indicate two things: 

First, the grand final match might have been arguably a bit less exciting to viewers, as its result had little impact on both teams since they both had already secured spots at Champions through VCT circuit points. 

Second, the popularity of participating teams has usually a strong impact on the viewership results of the competition. In this case, Sentinels with 516.6K Average Viewers and G2 Esports with 499.5K Average Viewers were the two most popular teams of the tournament, which also transferred into viewership results of individual matches. 

The top five most popular teams by Average Viewers chart is completed by North American squads Team Envy (438.4K AV) and 100 Thieves (432.2K AV), and Japanese team ZETA DIVISION (403K AV). 

Compared to the previous Valorant major — Stage 2 Masters Reykjavík, the concurrent viewership of the competition went down by 25.28%, while the average viewership decreased by 20.15%. 

As for the Hours Watched count, the number of HW increased by 32.62% as a result of the 65.39% increase in Air Time. 

That said, the competition’s decreased viewership numbers don’t necessarily mean that Valorant is on its way to losing popularity. In the case of the VCT 2021 Stage 3 Masters Berlin, the fact that the tournament hasn’t surpassed its previous edition only means that the event hasn’t broken the all-time viewership record, while the percentual decrease indicates how much was missing to achieve that. 

In other words, the Stage 3 Masters Berlin viewership results are no less than exceptional and the discipline is rejoicing in rising popularity mainly thanks to the VCT series. This is also reflected in increased viewership during the regular season of the series, as the comparison of the three stages of VCT 2021 demonstrates. According to our data, the Stage 3 qualifiers showed much more viewer activity than qualifiers for Stages 1 and 2. 

Will VALORANT become the leading FPS discipline?

When compared to other FPS esports titles, Valorant is looking to establish itself as the leading discipline. For example, the recent ESL Pro League Season 14 peaked at 758.5K concurrent viewers during its grand final — 6.5% less than the VCT 2021 Stage 3 Masters Berlin. 

Moreover, this year’s season of Call of Duty League peaked at 238.7K concurrent viewers during the grand final of its Call of Duty League Championship 2021, which is 70.57% less than the VCT 2021 Stage 3 Masters Berlin. 

As for the Overwatch League, the recent Overwatch League 2021 Countdown Cup attracted even fewer spectators, peaking at 71.7K concurrent viewers — 91.23% less than Stage 3 Masters Berlin. The popularity of the OWL has seen a notable decline this season and therefore fell behind the rising CDL. 

All in all, Valorant’s viewership is still growing and everything suggests that the discipline is yet to achieve its full potential. The closest to that will most likely be the culmination of the VALORANT Champions Tour’s inaugural season — the VALORANT Champions 2021. The event is set to take place from December 2nd - 12th in Berlin and will feature the top 16 Valorant teams fighting for the world’s first Valorant champions title.