Valorant Masters Santiago 2026 reached over 500,000 viewers for both of PRX’s games

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Valorant Masters Santiago 2026, the first international event of the Valorant Champions Tour this year, kicked off to strong viewership, especially a sustained wave of French-language support for the debut of Gentle Mates on the international stage. Throughout the Swiss Stage matches, the Masters tournament generated millions of hours of watch time, showing stable results when compared to past VCT events. 

By the end of the group stage, both Gentle Mates and Paper Rex advanced to the playoffs with a clean 2-0 record; G2 Esports and NRG also qualified with 2-1 records, defeating T1 and Team Liquid in their final elimination matches, respectively. With the playoffs decided for the Masters Santiago, the action will kick off on March 6 with a showdown between FURIA and Paper Rex: a match that will surely generate wide international attention and significant viewership. 

Before turning our attention to the Masters Santiago playoffs, Esports Charts breaks down the viewership for the group stage matches, including the most popular matches and a comparison to other esports titles. 

Valorant Masters Santiago viewership: overview & dynamics

In total, the Swiss Stage at Masters Santiago 2026 generated over 8.53M Hours Watched, while maintaining just shy of 350,000 concurrent viewers for all of its airtime. In terms of duration, the Swiss Stage went by more quickly. For example, Masters Toronto, the previous VCT Masters event, broadcast its group stage for almost three hours longer than Masters Santiago’s respective stage, exacerbating the difference in total watch time between the two events. 

While average viewership fell slightly for Masters Santiago, it achieved a strong peak viewership. The showdown between NRG and Paper Rex to decide which team would advance first to the playoffs was arguably the stage’s most exciting game, and it reached over 582K Peak Viewers.

The hard-fought battle between the two made Masters Santiago’s Swiss Stage the second-most popular VCT Masters Group Stage ever, falling only behind 2024’s Masters Madrid. After three maps — this was the only group stage match not to end with a 2:0 scoreline — PRX defeated NRG and advanced to playoffs smoothly. 

On top of this match, French-language viewership was strong throughout the opening days of Masters Santiago, and pushed even higher for Gentle Mates’ second game. The French organization is making their VCT international event debut, and French fans are swarming to the channel of M8’s co-founder and co-streamer Lucas “Squeezie” Hauchard.

Meanwhile, other demographics remain roughly stable for Valorant esports. Twitch and YouTube continued to see a shift in usage globally, with the red livestreaming platform becoming increasingly popular for esports fans. English-language viewership also remained stable compared to Masters Toronto in terms of peak viewership, although Average Viewers for this audience fell slightly compared to the Canadian event. 

Masters Santiago 2026 Swiss Stage: most popular matches

Paper Rex and NRG’s early opportunity to advance to playoffs was the most popular match of Masters Santiago 2026’s Swiss Stage. The North American world champions were defeated by PRX 1:2 in an electric series that saw every match end in a tight 13:10 or 13:11 scoreline. Paper Rex have become one of Valorant’s most recognisable brands internationally; it’s no wonder their game against the reigning world champions interested hundreds of thousands of Valorant viewers. 

Paper Rex also appeared in the second-most-popular match of the Swiss Stage for their opening game against G2 Esports. While the North American team has been able to defeat PRX at times throughout their history, the international Asian organization secured an effortless looking 2:0 victory over G2. Heading into the playoffs, Paper Rex show some of the strongest momentum among any teams who qualified through the Swiss Stage; as usual, the question will be if PRX are able to convert this into strong and consistent playoffs results. 

Lastly, the Gentle Mates debut against previous world championns EDward Gaming was the third-most-popular game of the opening stage. French viewers tuned in to support their teams’ first match on the major, international stage; also, many tuned in to compare EDG to international competition. While the team was able to shock many Valorant viewers with their world championship a couple of years ago, they have since failed to impress internationally, and fans sometimes find it difficult to compare the skill level of the China league to other International Leagues. 

Valorant Masters Santiago: top co-streamers of the Group Stage

During the Group Stage, Gentle Mates co-founder Squeezie earned almost 75,000 Peak Viewers for Gentle Mates’ second match against Team Liquid, making him the top co-streamer of the stage. The French team advanced to playoffs looking in strong form, and Squeezie will be expected to lead a wave of French viewers to cheer for the team in the playoffs stage.

Pujan “FNS” Mehta, an ex-professional player turned streamer, received over 60,000 Peak Viewers for his coverage of both of PRX’s Group Stage games. While FNS is a well-known figure in the North American community, he has spent his retirement from professional play largely cheering for Paper Rex when co-streaming; the organization’s wild, explosive style of Valorant is too captivating for fans to resist, and FNS’ strong understanding of the game makes it a perfect watch party for the chaos. 

In the final podium place, Tarik Celik is one of Valorant’s most popular personalities. He previously earned hundreds of thousands of peak concurrent viewers for his Valorant co-streams featuring his organization, Sentinels, but without them attending these international events, the North American star’s viewership has faltered. Nevertheless, he remains one of Valorant’s most popular co-streaming options and a true face for the game’s esports watch party scene. 

Valorant Masters Santiago vs. PGL Cluj-Napoca: a benchmark

While a stable result compared to other VCT Masters tournaments, how does Masters Santiago’s viewership compare to other major events in the tactical shooter esports genre? Earlier in February, the PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026 tournament took place for Counter-Strike 2 esports teams, generating millions and millions of hours watch time and recording over 900,000 concurrent viewers for its grand final.

Comparing the Group Stages for the two esports events, PGL Cluj-Napoca featured a much longer format compared to Riot Games’ structure; with double the teams competing, the Counter-Strike 2 tournament’s broadcasting time also corresponded to roughly double the broadcasting time of the Masters event. Naturally, this resulted in PGL’s event generated far many more Hours Watched, which can be appealing for sponsors looking to work their brand into the event happenings. 

However, Valorant’s key to international viewership is scarcity — the best teams around the globe only meet for tournaments a few times a year, incentivizing viewers to tune in. This wider philosophy of selective events leads to tournaments with highly concentrated viewership; to match this demand, Valorant Masters Santiago 2026 was broadcast by almost 100 more channels during its group stage than Cluj-Napoca.

Masters Santiago 2026 also maintained a far higher average concurrent viewership than PGL’s CS2 event, assisted by a short-and-sweet Swiss Stage format and the importance of the tournament to the VCT calendar. 

What’s next for Masters Santiago Playoffs?

The playoffs for Masters Santiago kick off soon, on March 6; the first match between FURIA and Paper Rex will begin at 19:00 CET or 15:00 local time in Santiago, Chile. To keep track of past viewership results but also upcoming matches for Masters Santiago, visit our tournament page, where the Schedule tab hosts all the information you need to catch the final matches of the event. Also, keep an eye on our blog, where we will be covering results and news surrounding Masters Santiago and other esports news.