VCT 2022: Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen became the least watched event in the series

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The second phase of the Valorant esports season has come to an end. FunPlus Phoenix and Paper Rex met in the grand final of VCT 2022: Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen with Kirill ANGE1 Karasev's team taking home the trophy as the won with the final score of 3:2. FPX got $200K for first place, while Paper Rex earned $120K.

FPX Phoenix players with a trophy | Photo: Riot Games

Eight teams competed in the group stage of VCT 2022: Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen. Guild Esports and OpTic Gaming entered the playoff from group A, while DRX and FunPlus Phoenix advanced from group B. KRU Esports, LOUD, Northeption and XERXIA left the competition at this stage.

The top four teams in the group stage faced four teams which were invited directly to the playoffs. Notably, FPX Phoenix and Paper Rex met in the second round of the upper bracket and then the team from Singapore won 2:0. Falling into the bottom grid FPX Phoenix defeated Guild Esports, DRX, Fnatic and OpTic Gaming and then beat Paper Rex in the decisive match of the event.

It should be noted that FunPlus Phoenix not only defeated all teams that completed the group stage, but also took revenge twice throughout the tournament: against DRX in groups and Paper Rex in the playoffs.

VCT 2022: Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen was the last tournament of the series in the season with only VALORANT Champions 2022 being ahead of us: final event of the season will be held in September in Istanbul. Sixteen teams from nine competing regions will be playing there. Some of the competitors have already secured their slots in the tournament by Circuit Points, the other teams will be determined by the results of the Last Chance qualifiers.

Viewership statistics

VCT 2022: Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen statistics

The VCT 2022: Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen matches accumulated 27.2 million Hours Watched, 317K Average Viewers and 783.9K Peak Viewers. The most popular match of the tournament was the final between FPX and PRX.

FPX became the most watched team of the event as its matches generated 10.39 million Hours Watched. OpTic Gaming came in second by the metric (20% less HW compared to the leader), with Paper Rex placing third (40% less HW than FPX).

The main broadcast language was English with 459K Peak Viewers and 49% of the tournament's total Hours Watched. The most viewers watched the matches on Twitch, the platform accumulated 623.8K Peak Viewers and YouTube attracted 158K Peak Viewers. 

Comparison with previous tournaments

Most popular international VCT events by PV & AV

VCT 2022: Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen had the worst audience reach in the entire Masters series. If we compare it to VCT 2022: Stage 1 Masters Reykjavík, the championship held in Iceland was better by all main metrics: Peak Viewers (+26%), Average Viewers (+23%) and Hours Watched (+18%). This can be explained by the fact that the finalists in Reykjavik — OpTic Gaming and LOUD — had much more fans than FPX and PRX.

English, Portuguese and Japanese are the main broadcast languages of Valorant esports, so it wasn't a surprise when the American and Brazilian team attracted more viewers at the previous event of the series. Two players from Russia and one from Ukraine play in FPX: one should have expected that such a lineup would draw a lot of attention from CIS fans, but the Russian-language broadcasts were only the sixth in popularity ranking (22.8K Peak Viewers). A similar situation with PRX: the team represents Indonesia, but Indonesian broadcasts were only slightly more popular than the Russian-language ones (25.2K Peak Viewers).

The early elimination of teams from Brazil and Japan only exacerbated the audience outflow. For comparison, while the Peak Viewers numbers on the Portuguese-language broadcast in the group stage reached 200K, this figure was only 31K and 40K viewers in the playoffs and final, respectively. By the way, when Brazil's LOUD played in the VCT 2022: Stage 1 Masters Reykjavík final, the Portuguese language broadcast accumulated 353.4K Peak Viewers.

The situation with the Japanese broadcasts was similar. Japan is one of the fastest growing regions on the Valorant esports scene, but the Japanese team was knocked out very quickly at the tournament in Copenhagen, and after that a large part of the local fans lost their interest in the event. For comparison, Japanese ZETA DIVISION got third place in Reykjavik which helped local broadcasts reach 419K Peak Viewers. However, Northeption took only 9th-10th place in Copenhagen: Japanese broadcasts attracted over 185K Peak Viewers during the group stage, but the figure reached only 134K during the final.

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The next big Valorant tournament is VALORANT Champions 2022. The tournament will take place from 2 to 18 August in Turkey. 16 of the world's best teams will be taking part in it. Details of the tournament venue and prize pool will be announced later.