The impact streamer teams can have in the Valorant partnership league

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Since its release, Riot Games FPS Valorant has become one of the biggest multiplayer games in the world. With millions of players around the world, it didn't take long for the Valorant competitive scene to gain traction. In the last two years, the scene has been growing at a very fast pace, and Valorant Esports is already considered a Tier 1 Esports, just like League of Legends, Dota 2, and their main rivals, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. 

With the competitive scene growing rapidly, some of the biggest Esports organizations were quick to create their Valorant division. Organizations such as G2 Esports, Team Liquid, Team Heretics, and TSM, are involved in the competitive scene of Valorant since its early days. 

Riot Games is now in the process of creating three partnership leagues. One in EMEA, the other in the APAC region, and the last one in the Americas. Only ten teams will be selected per league, and these teams will have their spot in the partnership league guaranteed forever, unless they decide to sell it in the future of course. 

This means every organization wants to enter the partnership league, but only a select few have made it to the final stage of Riot Games partnership admission program. In the last phase of the partnership program, we have twenty teams, with three of them being "streamer teams", KOI, Team Heretics, and Karmine Corp. These "streamer teams" have a very big chance to make it into this partnership league over older and well-established Esports organizations. 

What are "streamer teams"

So "what are these streamer teams? and why are they favored to make the partnership league?" you might be asking yourself right now. 

Well, these "streamer teams", as the name indicates, are organizations created by streamers or content creators in general. But don't get it wrong. All these organizations have a great structure behind them, and massive sponsors backing them up. It's not a bunch of streamers creating a team to just have some fun. These teams want to become the biggest in the world, and win titles in every Esports they are in. 

When it comes to the following these teams have, it's unparallel. They have thousands of passionate fans, that will support the team no matter what. Whenever one of these three teams played in their Valorant regional league, the broadcast numbers would skyrocket. The owners of these "streamer teams" would also co-stream the matches, and their streams would have an insane amount of viewers. 

It's amazing to see how teams in the Tier 2 scene in Europe, were attracting so many viewers, despite not participating in the EMEA VCT, which is by far the biggest Valorant league in Europe, and is considered by many the best league in the world. 

The Impact they can have in the Valorant partnership league

As mentioned above, these teams have a massive following. KOI, for example, just one day after its creation, already had more followers on its social media platforms, than Movistar Riders, one of the oldest and most successful organizations in Spanish Esports history. 

Team Heretics, are one of the biggest Esports organizations in the world when it comes to engagement on social media content. So it's clear what they can bring to the Valorant partnership league. All three of these teams can bring a massive amount of viewers, which would help not only the EMEA Valorant partnership league to grow, but also the game in general. 

These organizations also bring huge sponsors with them. Sponsors such as Dinsey+, Finetwork, Michelin, Samsung Odyssey, Red Bull, Lenovo, and many more. Obviously, Riot Games would love to have big brands like that sponsoring their league. If they have a team that is already sponsored by them in the partnership league, it makes brands such as the ones mentioned above want to be an official sponsor of the EMEA Valorant league. 

The viewership stats

If you take a close look at the viewership statistic, you can see that teams such as Karmine Corp had 1 million Hours Watched, with 146K Peak Viewers, and 40K Average Viewers. This is made even more impressive because of the fact that they only entered the second Split of the French Valorant regional league, and it has only been five months since they entered the Valorant competitive scene. 

They managed to have more Hours Watched, and Peak Viewers, than teams such as FOKUS, SuperMassive Blaze, and OG LDN UTD who all played in the EMEA VCT, the Tier 1 scene in Europe, while Karmine Corp played in the Tier 2 scene. 

Another team that also had great viewership numbers was KOI. The team owned by Twitch star ibai had 1.5 million Hours Watched, 170K Peak Viewers, and 38K Average Viewers. Just like their rivals Karmine Corp, they had higher numbers than Tier 1 organizations, despite not being in the biggest stage of European Valorant. 

Team Heretics didn't manage to reach numbers as good as KOI or Karmine Corp, but the Spanish organization still had 800K Hours Watched, 132K Peak Viewers, and 22K Average Viewers.  

Mandatory, despite not being in contention for a spot in the Valorant partnership league, also proves the point that these "streamer teams" can play a huge role in the viewership department. The team that is owned by famous French streamer ZeratoR, had 1.2 million Hours Watched, 131K Peak Viewers, and 27K Average Viewers.       

It's safe to say that these three teams would help boost the popularity of the EMEA Valorant league, and would also bring with them a lot of big brands that would want to associate themselves with Valorant if the teams are selected for the partnership league. 

KOI, Team Heretics, and Karmine Corp check every box that Riot Games might have for teams that want to join the partnership league. They have a solid structure, good finances, a large and passionate fan base, big brands sponsoring them, and above all a track record of being able to attract the public to whatever Esports or leagues they enter. 

Only time will tell if these three teams will make the cut, but there is no denying that the odds are stacked in their favor. Especially because Team Heretics will join the LEC, Riot Games League of Legends franchise league, next year, with KOI possibly doing the same. This makes their relationship with Riot Games even better, and gives both teams a better chance to get into the Valorant partnership league.