VCT 2024 Kickoffs: EMEA sees Karmine Corp notch biggest win yet, China makes steady debut
The year's first major Valorant events have ended, with the focus today being on the VCT 2024: EMEA Kickoff and the VCT 2024: China Kickoff. These two Valorant Champions Tour 2024 competitions concluded on the same day, i.e., March 2, with the latter being the region's debut in the game's competitive calendar.
The European and Middle Eastern section was especially fruitful as it saw a spike in peak and average concurrent viewerships compared to the international league held last year. The success of Karmine Corp and the presence of prominent streaming names from the continent played crucial roles in this improvement.
China, meanwhile, saw a sedate start to life as a separate international league, although the signs did point to better things with more exposure. Again, the success of major teams was a boon as it attracted more viewers to watch the action, with English figuring prominently in the total watch time chart.
Readers must remember that these are new tournaments added to the Valorant competitive roadmap for 2024, with the closest comparisons being the VCT 2023 leagues. With that in mind, here's a summation of the two competitions as fans look forward to a busy year ahead.
VCT 2024: EMEA Kickoff viewership recap
The VCT 2024: EMEA Kickoff recorded 419.2K Peak Viewers during the Playoffs Semifinals between Fnatic and Karmine Corp, two of the most followed sides in the region. The latter features in the second-most popular game as well, the Grand Final against Team Heretics, where it won 3:1 to claim its first and by far most significant victory to date.
That it had to do things the hard way by coming through the Play-In stage, where it edged out two other famous sides in Team Vitality and KOI made this win all the more sweeter for the side and its legions of fans. Their journey also helped this event do 9.5M Hours Watched and 179.9K Average Viewers over an airtime of 53 hours.
The victory also ensured the finalists two spots in the VCT 2024: Masters Madrid, which will feature the eight top teams from the four regional leagues battling it out from March 14 to 25 at the Madrid Arena. It will surely be a success considering the kind of viewership that Karmine Corp's owner Kamet0 brings to each of his broadcasts.
In fact, the French streaming superstar was one of the most successful channels at the VCT 2024: EMEA Kickoff when not counting official handles. Fellow content creator Squeezie’s live broadcasts were also in high demand, with his side Gentle Mates (still new to the scene) finishing in the 7th-9th bracket in its first appearance in an S-Tier competition.
Regarding comparisons, the closest tournament from the 2023 season is the VCT 2023: EMEA League, which ended as the least popular of the three international leagues. However, this time, it was much closer to its Pacific counterpart — which became the game's most popular event for the region ever — in terms of peak concurrent viewers.
Once again, it is imperative to mention the role of celebrity content creators and the effect they have on these competitions with their participation, either as team owners or co-streamers. With the likes of Squeezie, Kamet0, Wtcn, Ibai, Thegrefg, Mixwell, and Sinatraa all live broadcasting the action for one reason or another, the viewership for the EMEA league was much higher than last year.
The number of channels live streaming the matches also went up by 18, helping attract more audiences from around the globe, let alone the EMEA European and Middle East regions. That Ibai's side, KOI, went out at the Play-In stage shows that there is more potential in this league, with his videos usually reaching millions when his team reaches the final stages of any event.
VCT 2024: China Kickoff viewership recap
The VCT 2024: China Kickoff is a new entity as the region was making its debut in the discipline's esports segment. And the country's strict and highly-protective streaming rules make it a little hard to get the most accurate of viewership data.
However, as per the Esports Charts database, it peaked at 61.5K people during the Grand Final between FunPlus Phoenix and EDward Gaming. The latter won 3:1 to go unbeaten in its three matches and claim a place in the Masters Madrid alongside its vanquished foe.
Even though the main viewership of the tournament was on Chinese platforms. However, since it is impossible to calculate the exact number of viewers on these sites, only figures for platforms popular in the West, like Twitch and YouTube, were used. That is where it emerged that the likes of Im_mittiii, Sinatraa, and Shanks_ttv ended up covering many games, although most of the Chinese audiences preferred the official streams on these two streaming services.
The competition winner had three entries in the five most popular matches list, showing just how sought after it remains among fans in the Asian country. Its performances also helped this Valorant tournament notch 900.2K Hours Watched and 16K Average Viewers over 56 hours of airtime.
While Chinese was the major language, taking up about half of the share of the overall watch time, English accounted for almost 30%, which can only be a positive as the league looks to attract more of an international audience in the future. The likes of Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian appearing on this list was further proof that there is much potential to explore in this Valorant market.
Most popular competitions in the VCT 2024 Kickoff series
While it's had a relatively sedate start to life as a top international league in the game, the numbers do show there's a decent market in China that will only grow as Riot Games harnesses its expertise and the love that the fans here have for all things gaming with more competitions and higher prize pools. Certainly, if things go well, there could be a case for international events like the VCT 2024: Masters Shanghai to be held more frequently in this nation.
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