Japan widened its lead ahead of other Valorant Challenger circuits through 2024 Stage 2

Valorant Challengers is the series of national and regional circuits which make up Valorant’s official tier-2 scene. Riot Games has continued to develop the series over the years, expanding it to more and more regions, and giving teams from across the globe opportunities to enter the esports’ franchised top-tier scene. 2024, and 2023, have hosted some of the most popular Valorant Challengers events to date, and many regional circuits are experiencing significant viewership growth. Across the past three months, the Split 2 events for all regional circuits took place, with teams competing for an Ascension slot, the official tournament which will decide the singular team to advance to the Valorant Champions Tour. With many of the regional Challengers circuit having come to an end for 2024, this is a perfect time for us to take a look at the global viewership statistics of the Valorant Challengers, and its most popular regional circuits. In total, all 24 Valorant Challengers Split 2 tournaments received a combined total watch time of 14.52M Hours Watched. Split 1 events earlier this year generated 3.43M more hours of watch time, but also with roughly 300 more hours of broadcasting time. As it was during Split 1 of this year also, the Japanese regional circuit was once again by far the most popular Challengers event of the split. VALORANT Challengers Japan 2024: Split 2 received 220K Peak Viewers, by far outperforming any other event throughout the split. The event achieved such high viewership not only thanks to the support of popular internet personalities co-broadcasting matches, but also simply due to the large, passionate audience of Valorant fans in Japan. Both the Korean circuit and the Malaysia and Singapore circuit were able to set new viewership records for their respective regions through Split 2. The VALORANT Challengers 2024 Korea: Split 2 received a significant portion of its viewership from CHZZK, a new South Korea-based livestreaming platform. VALORANT Challengers 2024 Malaysia and Singapore: Split 2 set its viewership record essentially entirely thanks to DisguisedToast, an American content creator and streamer whose organization, Disguised, qualified for Ascension during the event. Explore viewership for each of these Split 2 events through the Valorant Challengers event series page. In the remaining podium places behind Japan were the mid-season and end-of-season LAN events for the North American circuit. VALORANT Challengers 2024: North America Challenger Playoffs was the most popular American event of the circuit, having reached 50.8K Peak Viewers. The event was supported by American streamers tarik and Ludwig as co-broadcasters, who reached 28.9K PV and 16.4K PV, respectively. Ludwig was supporting his own organization throughout the event, Moist x Shopify Rebellion; although MxS finished the event in third-place, their match against M80 was the most popular game of the event thanks to the co-broadcasters’ support. France was able to become the third-most popular region of Split 2 also thanks to organization founders co-broadcasting the event. VALORANT Challengers 2024 France: Revolution Split 2’s most popular broadcasters were JLTomy and ZeratoR, who both almost reached 30K Peak Viewers during the event. JLTomy is the founder of Joblife, whose Valorant team were the ultimate victors of Split 2, and ZeratoR is a co-founder of Mandatory, who finished the split in fourth place. Naturally, these two organizations’ match against one another was the event’s most popular match, receiving 36.2K Peak Viewers. Throughout esports, although especially in Europe, esports organizations owned and/or founded by content creators have quickly become some of the most popular organizations in the industry. By combining the passion of a content creator’s following with the excitement of esports, many organizations are able to reach new heights and become their region’s most popular teams. In total, the VALORANT Challengers Japan 2024: Split 2 event received 7.8M Hours Watched, making it the most-watched Valorant Challengers event of Split 2, and the second-most-watched event of 2024, only falling behind Japan’s Split 1 event. The grand final between FENNEL and Riddle had its viewership significantly boosted by ボドカさん (vodkavdk), a Japanese Twitch streamer and founder of the Riddle organization. For his coverage of the grand final match, he received 94K Peak Viewers on his personal Twitch channel. 加藤純一です (kato_junichi0817) is another wildly popular Japanese content creator with 981K Followers on Twitch. He founded his own esports organization, Murash Gaming, who are currently competing in Japan’s Challenger circuit, and finished Stage 2 in 4th place. For his coverage of Murash’s playoffs run, he received 111.3K Peak Viewers, becoming the most popular broadcaster of the event. Not all content creators supporting Japan’s regional circuit are organization owners. Lazvell, a Japanese streamer and esports professional, broadcasted multiple games throughout the Split, and received 47.2K Peak Viewers. Laz currently competes with ZETA DIVISION in the Valorant Champions Tour, and he still manages to find the time to highlight upcoming talent from his home country, and support the Challengers regional circuit. Whether organization owners or esports professionals themselves, it is clear how passionate these Japanese streamers feel about their regional circuit, and their support is one of the key reasons why Japan has emerged as such a dominant force in the tier-2 scene. Most popular Valorant Challengers event by peak concurrent viewers Ultimately, the Split 2 events this year were not able to reach the same heights as their Split 1 counterparts. This is something commonly observed all across the esports industry in regional circuits which offer multiple events a year. However, Japan’s Split 2 event was still able to become the third-most popular Challengers event in the series’ history. This follows Split 1, when Japan hosted Challengers’ most popular tournament with 232.5K PV. Although Japan is stealing the spotlight away from the other regions, North America and France have enjoyed significant viewership thanks to support from these content creator infused organizations. Following after this year’s Champions event, each of Valorant’s four major regions will host their Ascension event, to decide which team will advance to the top-tier of competition. With such a successful 2024 already in-hand, these Ascension events have the potential to not only become some of the most popular Challengers events, but some of the most popular Valorant esports tournaments in general.

Japan widened its lead ahead of other Valorant Challenger circuits through 2024 Stage 2

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