The Game Changers Championship 2025 was the series’ least popular championship to date

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The electric Valorant Game Changers Championship 2025 crowned a new team champion, following a nail-biting best-of-five grand finals that went to the last map. Unfortunately, viewership for the championship did not match the rousing storyline on display, with many major dynamics in the red compared to last year.

The ultimate tournament of the Game Changers 2025 season capped off a poor year in general for the esports circuit. The league for female players and other marginalized genders recorded its lowest regular season peak in 2025, with 56.9K Peak Viewers (PV) VCT 2025: Game Changers Brazil Stage 2 — even lower than its inaugural year, when it reached 66.3K PV at the VCT 2022: Game Changers East Asia. 

This trend continued at the Game Changers Championship 2025, where 43% fewer Average Viewers tuned in. The opening days and grand finals suffered the most from these viewership decreases, whereas the middle games of the event managed to come slightly closer to last year’s results. In the end, the championship earned 3.75M Hours Watched (HW), a 40.8% decrease compared to last year. 

For the grand final, viewership reached its peak as two-time champions Shopify Rebellion GC and vying champions Team Liquid Brazil battled it out on stage. Shopify had achieved their championships with Ava "florescent" Eugene, the first player to graduate from GC to the VCT, and they looked to prove themselves without their star player. However, Team Liquid, led by Natália "daiki" Vilela, was able to convert too many rounds and proved too strong for the rebuilt Shopify roster. 

Peak viewership for the grand final showdown reached 228.7K PV, over a 50% decrease compared to the record-setting viewership of 2024. Not only is this a significant dip compared to 2025, but in terms of peak viewership, this made the Game Changers Championship 2025 the least popular championship in the series yet. 

The YouTube Peak was one of the few metrics which recorded a positive dynamic compared to last year. This YouTube growth was largely thanks to many creators dipping their toes into multistreaming, now streaming their broadcasts to multiple platforms simultaneously. This multistreaming expansion has largely affected YouTube Live, where top Valorant streamers from Twitch are hosting streams and enjoying a sizable, additional audience. Unfortunately, at the Game Changers championship, this additional audience was offset by a more significant decrease in their main platform viewership. 

In terms of the most popular matches of the championship, matches between Shopify Rebellion GC and Brazilian competition proved to be the winning formula. However, despite the event crowning a Brazilian team Game Changers champions for the first time ever, Portuguese-language peak viewership still decreased significantly for the grand finals. 

The drops in viewership at the Game Changers 2025 season-ending tournament were not for want of coverage. Compared to last year, there were over 80 more broadcasting channels covering the event, and many of the top co-streamers from 2024 returned. While there were ample broadcasting options, viewership and attention for these channels was diluted compared to last year, with both top co-streamers and official broadcasts struggling.

Viewership comparison of Game Changers Championships, Hours Watched & Peak Viewers

Following a record-breaking 2024, viewership dynamics have swung in the other direction for Valorant’s Game Changers. The Game Changers Championship 2026 is already scheduled into next year’s calendar to begin in October, directly after Valorant Champions Shanghai. With a whole year of esports events and content planned for the tactical shooter, there are plenty of chances for the circuit to build its viewership back up. Keep an eye on the evolving viewership statistics of coming events, and the legacy of past tournaments, with the Esports Charts tournament database.