Who are the best candidates for VCT partner leagues based on viewership?

Loading

Riot Games introduced a new tier-one structure for the best teams, an official league of partnered and franchised teams. Teams competing in Challengers, the official tier-two league, will have a chance to qualify for Ascension, a new event hosted in all three regions each year. The new event allows teams a legitimate path to the top tier of the discipline, but only one team can make it each year. With only three spots a year available for the entire world, teams that bring in massive viewership might end up missing out on competing at the highest level. 

The first ten partners of the VCT were hand-picked by Riot and they didn’t choose the teams who won the most events. Interestingly, Riot stated they chose teams which belong to organisations that put fans first, who build for the long-term, and who create a strong connection with fans through exciting content. Riot has their focus pinned on making the VCT enjoyable and entertaining for all fans, and the Ascension system, allowing one team per region to graduate from Challengers, helps keep the league fresh but stable.

The Ascension events for 2023 wrapped up earlier this month, with Gentle Mates ascending for EMEA, The Guard for the Americas, and Bleed eSports in the Pacific region. These teams have already qualified for the 2024 and 2025 VCT seasons; but, which teams in 2023 may have been a better fit when it comes to bringing viewership to the VCT? At Esports Charts we have explored all the data for each Challengers team’s viewership and found the most popular and hype-generating teams in each region.

Valorant Challengers EMEA Teams 

Looking at Hours Watched, we can see Gentle Mates was by far the most watched team in the EMEA region with 3.85M Hours Watched, with Mandatory trailing behind at 1.65M Hours Watched and finally followed by Apeks, 1.04M Hours Watched. Let’s first talk about Apeks, as they don’t appear within the Average Viewers rankings. 

Apeks is an international roster built around French in-game leader Enzo. The multinational team competed in the Northern Europe league, winning Split 1 and 2, and eventually qualifying for Ascension. Critically, they earned a playoff spot in each of these, making their way to the Grand Final of each event. This high amount of matches played inflates Apeks’ Hours Watched statistics compared to other teams, and one should note that it’s not the only metric for the popularity of a team: the Average Viewers figure is also really important for us in this specific case.

The Average Viewers figure is precisely what it seems: the average number of viewers each team received throughout their Challengers run. Joblife is the third-highest ranking team in terms of Average Viewers, averaging 22.7K viewers per game played. Joblife is a representation of a new wave in esports, as it was created and founded by a French content creator. JLTomy is a French streamer on Twitch and one of the biggest around, with 1.19M Followers on Twitch. Originally part of the Team JL streamer group which Tomy also founded, he created the Joblife organisation to compete in League of Legends and eventually join Valorant. Although Team JL has since disbanded, the hype and community feel of the Joblife roster never went away.

Joblife received early attention throughout the French regional league’s first split, receiving 19K Average Viewers a game, the most of anyone in the league. Although they received such major attention, the team competitively struggled and finished 5th in Split 1. Although Joblife had a solid fan community, they lacked the competitive edge to bring themselves into the winning spots of the league, which proved to be their disadvantage against Mandatory and Gentle Mates.

Mandatory's roster at Lyon e-Sport 2022, picture from Mandatory's blog

Mandatory received 29.2K Average Viewers throughout the season, despite being behind Joblife in the first Split of the season. However, having finished in second place in Split 1 they proved to be a more competitive team with better championship hopes. Mandatory is also backed by an even bigger French streamer, with ZeratoR acting as their co-founder. The French Twitch streamer has 1.53M Followers on the platform and supported his team through watch parties and costreams on the purple platform. Despite losing Split 1 to the SBG roster, they had the competitive edge and streamer-backing to become the most popular team in the region. That is until SBG became Gentle Mates.

SBG were the Split 1 victors and despite looking like the best team in the league at the time, they didn’t have the streaming backing of the other French rosters to become a fan favourite. Following their Split 1 victory, the roster was starting to build up excitement around their gameplay, before being signed to Gentle Mates for the Split 2 league.

Gentle Mates’ co-owners are Squeezie, Gotaga, and Broky Brawks. If you do not speak French you might not recognise these names, but between them all, they have almost 8.5M Twitch Followers. The new Gentle Mates roster combined superior firepower with the followings of some of the most popular French streamers, and in Split 2 they skyrocketed to the top with 65.7K Average Viewers per game, going on to eventually secure another first-place victory. 

Gentle Mates celebrating moments after earning their VCT spot, picture by Hara Amoros for Riot Games

Gentle Mates had a competitively rough time throughout the Ascension tournament, not looking as solid as main rivals Apeks. Up until Ascension, Apeks had only lost one match during the entire year, and the community were positive they would continue their run all the way to Champions. Gentle Mates clawed their way through the lower brackets, eventually making it to the Grand Final where they comfortably defeated Apeks 3-0. Gentle Mates were by far the most popular team of the event, with all top five of the most-watched games featuring the French roster. 

Ultimately, the EMEA league for this season was the story of French teams all competing against each other for viewership until Gentle Mates took a competitive step ahead of the rest, cementing their spot as not only the most popular team of the league but also the team who emerged victorious from Riot’s rigorous Ascension format. 

Valorant Challengers Pacific Teams 

If you watched the Pacific Ascension tournament for this season, you might only recognise SCARZ from this list, so who are they? If EMEA is a story of French streamer-backed teams dominating, the Pacific league is the story of Japanese market domination. Challengers league’s around the world within the three major regions are split up into further minor regional leagues, there are 10 of these in the Pacific region and 33 overall across the world. Throughout all of these regions, Japan reigns dominant. 

Of all Challengers regional Splits, Japan’s are the two most-watched regions worldwide. Throughout both, the Japanese league amassed almost 14.5M Hours Watched. Compare this to the French region, which collected 3.84M Hours Watched, and that's with the help of the streamer-founded teams. In the entire Pacific region, BOOM Esports was the most popular team outside the Japanese league, and they achieved 7K fewer Hours Watched than the least popular team in the Japanese region, Jadeite. Going through the Average Viewers, FENNEL took third with 62.7K viewers per game on average.

FENNEL built up an organic following for themselves coming into the newly revamped Challengers system of 2023. Despite a disappointing season in 2022, the Japanese roster managed to climb through the open qualifiers for their region, eventually emerging victorious from the qualifiers and claiming their spot in the Challengers league. They went on to win Japan Split 1 but they still only ranked fourth in Average Viewers with 76K viewers throughout the Split. 

Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay in this form coming into Split 2, eventually settling for third place. The third-place finish in Split 2 meant that FENNEL did not qualify for Ascension and their run ended there, with over 10 regional leagues in the Pacific region Ascension is hugely competitive and only the best team from each region has room to compete.

SCARZ at the Valorant Ascension Pacific 2023, photo from SCARZ

SCARZ was the team that qualified for the Japanese spot in Ascension and although they lost out to Bleed eSports, they were the most-watched team of the event with 75K Average Viewers, 5K more than Bleed eSports. Out of the top five most-watched matches of the tournament, four of these feature SCARZ. Without revealing all of our data available to PRO users, Japanese was by far the most popular language of the Pacific Ascension event. Although not the most popular team from Japan, the team built up a fanbase with their competitiveness in Split 1 and by winning Split 2 they ensured themselves a large Japanese viewership in Ascension: as the sole competitor from the Land of the Rising Sun. 

Nevertheless, far ahead of both SCARZ and FENNEL is Crazy Raccoon. The Japanese roster is most well-known in the region for playing at the Valorant Champions 2021 event, the only Japanese team in Challengers to be able to boast of this fact. In fact, excluding ZETA DIVISION, who currently competes in the VCT, Crazy Raccoon is the only Japanese team to have made a prior appearance at a Champions event. They were ultimately unable to be competitive enough to win a Split in the 2023 season, finishing in second in Japan Split 1 and in fourth in Split 2. 

Despite these disappointing results for the organisation, Crazy Raccoon received huge fan support from their loyal Japanese fans. In the first Split of the year, Crazy Raccoon received over 100K Average Viewers. For reference, this is 25K more than SCARZ garnered at the Ascension event, and SCARZ were the most popular team at the event. Viewership did decline coming into Split 2 overall in Japan, but Crazy Raccoon was still over 10K ahead of SCARZ in second place. Crazy Raccoon received 79.4K viewers on average throughout both Splits, not only making them the most popular Challengers team in the region but also worldwide. 

Leaving such a hugely popular team with its loyal fanbase to stay in Challengers for another season feels like a missed opportunity for Riot Games to grow its influence and truly tap into the Japanese market’s full potential. Hopefully, Crazy Raccoon’s viewership can stay healthy throughout next year as they battle through Challengers to fight for another spot in the Champions Tour. 

Valorant Challengers Americas Teams 

Moving on to our final region of the article, the Americas Challengers league. The Americas region makes up both North and South America, and although South American teams do receive solid viewership, the North American English-speaking audience is the larger of the two. As such, the top teams for the region in both Hours Watched and Average Viewers are teams from the North American side of the region. 

At the top of Hours Watched are The Guard, M80, and TSM. Unsurprising to see The Guard and M80 here, these two teams were the most competitive rosters throughout the region. These two were the typical pairing to see play against each other in the Finals of any event, and they both qualified for the Ascension event as North America's two representatives. Facing off against teams from Latin America and Brazil, M80 and The Guard dominated the tournament before facing each other in the Grand Final. After a nail-biting game, The Guard defeated M80 to advance to the Champions Tour for the next season. Meaning M80, who only lost two matches throughout both Split 1, Split 2, and both playoffs of these splits, are set to play another season in Challengers.

Turning towards Average Viewers, TSM claimed the third spot there as they did in the ranking per Hours Watched too. TSM received an average of 67K viewers per game. TSM, a household name in terms of esports organisations, have been competing in Valorant since 2020. Although they’ve undergone many roster mixups, the organisation has continued to compete and attempt to break through into the top tier of the discipline. For the 2023 season, they fielded a roster of ex-professional Overwatch and Counter-Strike players and were invited to the Challengers league.

Despite their invitation and goals of finally breaking into the top tier of another discipline, TSM only managed a fourth-place finish in North America Split 1: ultimately their best result of the year. Nevertheless, they managed to qualify for both playoff events, the North America Mid-Season Face Off and the North America Challenger Playoffs. Their results at these tournaments left them much to be desired, never finishing within the top four, but they were the second most popular team of both of these events, averaging 56.55K viewers.

TSM's Valorant team at the start of 2023, credit to TSM

TSM are guaranteed a spot in the 2024 Challengers league, thanks to their qualification for the Challenger Playoffs in 2023. With their spot secured for 2024, they stand in direct contrast to Disguised. 

Disguised, which ranks second by Average Viewers with 68.2K viewers per game, is an esports organisation created by streamer DisguisedToast. DisguisedToast is a Canadian streaming personality and original member of OfflineTV. He has 2.82M followers on Twitch and 3.8M subscribers on YouTube. The internet personality announced at the start of 2023 that he would be fielding a Valorant roster to compete in the Challengers league for 2023. The roster was built around ex-professional Counter-Strike players, most notably steel of the infamous iBUYPOWER roster, but also had some fresh talent to mould. 

The roster debuted in the Open Qualifier for the North American league, going on to tie for first alongside the BreakThru roster. The team struggled to find their footing in the Challengers league, finishing 8th in Split 1. In spite of lukewarm performances, the roster was the second most-watched team of the Split with 73.6K Average Viewers. The roster’s viewership was helped along by DisguisedToast’s costreams and watch parties for their matches. He also watched some of the games alongside massive Valorant streamer Tarik, who is quickly becoming one of the biggest creators in Valorant through his watch parties of matches. After finishing tied last place in the Mid-Season Face Off, Disguised decided some changes needed to be made. 

For the second Split, Disguised picked up nerve, a talented player from the lower tiers of North American Valorant, and importantly, yay. Yay is an ex-professional Counter-Strike player who played with OpTic Gaming in Valorant for the 2022 season. Despite finishing second at the international Valorant Champions 2022, OpTic Gaming was not chosen by Riot Games to play in the Champions Tour, leaving the roster to disband. All members of the former OpTic Gaming organisation found a new team in the Champions Tour, all except yay. 

Yay made the step down from competing at the top tier international level to North America Challengers, citing a wish to play and compete instead of sitting around waiting for a team until next season. Disguised quickly became the most popular team in the league, achieving 75K Average Viewers per game throughout Split 2. 

DisguisedToast, the man behind the Disguised Valorant team, screenshot of his live stream.

Despite the popularity of the roster, they lost all 7 matches they played with yay, including finishing last at the Play-In Relegation. At the Play-In Relegation event, Disguised was the most-watched team with 48.7K Average viewers, compared to second-place MAD Lions’ 39.2K. Finishing last at this event, Disguised was officially relegated from the Challengers league and creator DisguisedToast announced the dissolution of the roster shortly after. 

With Disguised officially out of contention, this means the second-most-popular organisation in North America Challengers for 2023 might not even field a team in the next season. With 68.2K fans watching the team play every game on average, it seems like an awful shame for Riot Games’ to lose out on this opportunity in their leagues. However, with DisguisedToast recently announcing a new Game Changers roster, the organisation does not yet seem done with Valorant. 

Moving on from Disguised, Moist Moguls were ultimately the most popular team in the Americas region, averaging less than 1K more viewers than Disguised on average throughout the season. Disguised and Moist Moguls are both teams that are powered by content creators stepping into the esports industry. As the saying goes, two heads are better than one; two major North American content creators established the Moist Moguls Valorant roster as a collaborative project. Moist Moguls are the brainchild of Moist Critical, known as penguinz0 on YouTube, and YouTuber Ludwig. Combined they have over 18.4M+ YouTube subscribers, and these subscribed are rallied behind Moist Moguls. 

If you recall from earlier in the article, Disguised achieved a tied first-place finish in the Open Qualifiers for the 2023 North American Challengers season, alongside rivals BreakThru. This roster was the one chosen by Moist Moguls to become their debut Valorant team. Not only were they a source of content for watch parties by Ludwig and Moist Critical, but they also were quite competitive. In the first Split of the year they finished fifth, qualifying for the Mid-Season Face Off where they achieved tied fifth place alongside TSM. In the first Split they were the most popular team by far, achieving 96.4K Average Viewers and over 15K more than Disguised. 

Coming into Split 2 after the Mid-Season Face Off, Disguised’s signing of yay helped them to take the spot of the most popular team for that portion of the season. However, Moist Moguls remained within the top two spots, earning 52.8K Average Viewers throughout the second Split. Throughout Split 2 whilst Disguised was losing all their games, Moist Moguls were winning all of theirs. They went undefeated in Group B, winning all five games and defeating even The Guard. Their progress qualified them for the Challengers Playoffs, and a chance to earn a spot at the Ascension event. 

As we know, The Guard and M80 qualified for the Ascension event in North America, but Moist Moguls was close behind in third, even defeating The Guard in the Upper bracket Semifinals. During this Playoffs event, Moist Moguls were by far the most popular team, with 69.5K Average Viewers tuning in to the games, giving them a 16K gap to TSM in second. Moist Moguls have secured their Challengers spot for 2024, but do they deserve to languish in the second tier of the discipline for another year?

Ludwig (right) is a co-owner of Moist Moguls, picture from Ludwig's Twitter

Concerning the most popular teams of the Americas’ Challengers, TSM represent a well-known esports organisation that achieved average results and stayed afloat in the league. Disguised, on the other hand, is a new organisation with their founder’s huge following behind them. Sadly, without the competitive ability to allow them to proceed through the Challengers format, the future of this organisation is unclear in Valorant. Moist Moguls are a solid mixture of these important aspects: they have their founders’ huge followings behind them and they proved they are competitive and can showcase solid Valorant gameplay. Moist Moguls seems like an obvious choice for Riot Games if they were to hand-pick any new partners for their Champions Tour, but until that day Moist Moguls must first ascend through the Challengers league.

All in all, Riot’s decision to hand-pick teams initially but then move towards a graduation system based solely on competitive results has left them with missed opportunities. The French Challengers league is entirely oversaturated and whilst many teams backed by French streamers are all competing for too few available slots, we can take solace in knowing the best fit for the partnered leagues ascended. 

The Japanese market remains one of the biggest fanbases in Valorant, however, it remains underrepresented in the Pacific Champions Tour, with only one Japanese team set to appear in 2024. The bottleneck of the Challengers ascension system will not allow the fan-favourite Japanese teams to move up into the top tier. 

Finally, in the Americas, many different organisations are scrambling for a spot in the Champions Tour, and despite Moist Moguls achieving a balance between competitiveness and popularity that is unseen anywhere else in the region, they are scheduled for another season in Challengers for 2024.