VCT Americas concludes 2025 Kickoff events as most popular Valorant International League

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The playoffs stages of International League (IL) Kickoff events for Valorant concluded last weekend. While the Americas circuit initially showed low promise for viewership, matches which could effectively tap into LATAM audiences reached sizable peak viewerships, eclipsing the other regional circuits around the globe.

The VCT 2025: Americas Kickoff was indeed popular enough to outperform the other regions, however, the event was noticeably less-watched than last year’s Kickoff. 2025 marked the second iteration of the new Kickoff events, and interest has seemed to dip slightly compared to its initial excitement. Watch time fell for both official channels and co-streamers across most language groups, with few audiences standing out from the pack.

The exception to this point of falling interest was LATAM audiences. Both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Valorant fans were crucial to the overall viewership for the Kickoff this year. While the Grand Final between G2 Esports and Sentinels recorded the English Peak for the tournament, Sentinels’ lower-bracket final against MIBR was the most popular match, reaching over 550,000 peak concurrent viewers.

Other highly popular games from the Americas Kickoff also featured South American teams, with squads like Leviatán, MIBR, and LOUD leading the way for this region. The Grand Finals of the Kickoff was only the fourth most popular game, as it suffered from a lack of appeal for South American Valorant fans. This North American derby match was popular, but it was unlikely the ideal match-up in terms of viewership.

In terms of co-streamers of the event, Brazilian audiences remained the most potent. While both the official broadcast channels and top English co-streamers like Tarik "tarik" Celik lost viewership compared to last year, Brazilian viewership appeared strong with many co-casters maintaining their results compared to last year, and even some new entries to the scene like Gustavo "Sacy" Rossi receiving strong viewership.

While Sentinels were the most-watched team by total Hours Watched, this figure is boosted by their participation in many games. In terms of average concurrent viewers, one team was actually more popular than Sentinels; the most popular teams by average viewers for an event is available on the respective tournament page for Esports Charts PRO users.

While Sentinels are still popular, they may have lost some steam with the retirements of Tyson "TenZ" Ngo and Sacy. TenZ in particular was a world-leading Valorant player in terms of popularity, and he was the centrepoint of the Sentinels’ fan base for years. Now, with no TenZ, and no Brazilian representation from Sacy, Sentinels appear to be unable to keep up with the magical peak viewerships they enjoyed last year.

While the 2025 Americas Kickoff was not able to top last year’s inaugural edition, it still stood ahead of the remainder of the season-starting tournaments. The rivalry between North and South America continues to burn strong, and VCT Americas events always have a chance of high viewership if they are able to combine these two loyal and passionate groups.

While the 2025 Valorant Champions Tour is not on-pace to reach any new major records this year, it is still recording strong results after a particularly successful 2024. Nevertheless, other regions have shown huge potential for their viewership this year too; the Pacific Kickoff reached hundreds of thousands of Japanese Valorant fans, and the EMEA circuit continues to receive massive attention from French co-streamers. Esports Charts will soon take a deeper look at all Kickoff results, to compare and contrast Valorant’s rival International Leagues.