VCT: LOCK//IN viewership analysis — Statistics of languages, channels, teams & sponsor mentions
The VCT: LOCK//IN São Paulo was the first Valorant event of the 2023 season for Riot Games, and it did not disappoint in terms of viewership. It attracted a large audience and even finished as the second-best tournament by Peak Viewers in Valorant esports history. Esports Charts presents a detailed break-up of the event, including the impact of non-official channels, the popularity of teams, and a classic Valorant rivalry in the making between two consistent teams.
This event did some great numbers to firmly establish itself as one of the most successful Valorant competitions so far. The VCT: LOCK//IN São Paulo recorded 1.4 million PV, the second-highest number behind the Valorant Champions 2022, which did 1.5 million PV. In fact, accounting for all-time shooter tournaments, it finished tenth in this metric, which is quite a feat.
LOCK//IN registered 44.1 million Hours Watched and 432K Average Viewers. The latter placed it fourth in the overall list, behind the 2022 and 2021 Valorant Champions and the VCT 2021 Stage 2 Masters Reykjavík. In terms of HW, this Riot Games competition ended in third on the overall standing, behind the last two Valorant Champions events.
Regarding shooter events from Match 1, 2022, to March 7, 2023, the VCT: LOCK//IN São Paulo finished as the fourth-best when considering PV, another feather in its cap. Looking at these overall numbers, it is safe to say that the event was a raging success, and it got the season off to a solid start, with the teams now switching their attention to their regional leagues.
Three matches from this competition made the top ten list for all Valorant games across its history when comparing PV and HW. The Grand Final between Fnatic and LOUD finished second, behind only the meeting between OpTic and LOUD in the Grand Final of the Valorant Champions 2022.
LOUD’s matches appear five times on this list and OpTic’s four times, while three of their games against each other are present. This shows how popular these sides are and the fact that they might just enjoy the rivalry in the short history of Valorant esports.
English and Twitch fall, Portuguese and YouTube rise
In contrast to the VCT 2021 Reykjavik (59.2%), English lost its footing in terms of share of the audiences (41.1%), as this was the language’s lowest score across the seven major Valorant events so far. This was also a fall of 2.7% from the previous premier competition, the Valorant Champions 2022.
Portuguese was a big benefactor at the VCT: LOCK//IN São Paulo, as it notched its greatest share of the audience in Valorant esports history. Compared to the first-ever competition in Iceland, it almost doubled its share, while it grew by 8.6% from the Valorant Champions 2022.
Japanese was the biggest loser event-on-event, falling 8.3% from the previous major tournament. Turkish saw a slight rise from the last event, but that wasn’t enough to prove it had turned a corner, and only a bigger sample size after some more competitions are held can a proper conclusion be reached. What can be concluded for now is that both languages suffered as a result of their teams heading home early from the event, which is never a good sign for viewership numbers.
When it comes to the popularity of teams per language, the most obvious side was LOUD in for Portuguese, with 244K AV. In English, Sentinels were the most watched team with 313K AV, while ZETA DIVISION was the most preferred Japanese org at 153K AV.
When it came to Turkish, BBL Esports, with 84K AV, headed the list, while KOI had 66K PV to lead the Spanish sides. French side Karmine Corp did 79K AV to find a place in the top five for overall AV numbers.
In terms of platforms, Twitch continued to rule the roost, accounting for 81% of the total streaming hours, while YouTube got 18.7% of the share. However, hidden within these details so the fact that the purple platform has been steadily losing this share with subsequent tournaments, while the Google-owned site has continued gaining.
The difference is still too large to worry the Amazon-owned organization immediately, but it will be a cause of concern for them going forward. On the other hand, this growth will serve as motivation for the red platform as they look forward to future Valorant competitions.
Community casters continue to be as important as ever
Community casting plays a massive in Valorant esports, with popular streamers, including ex-pros, streaming tournaments live and giving their takes on the same. This helps bring more viewers and eyeballs into the product, which can only be good long-term.
In fact, community casters have been a major part of competition streaming for Riot Games since the first-ever event. And the difference between the share for official and no-official broadcasts continues to favor one side only.
At the first-ever event, the VCT 2021 Stage 2 Masters Reykjavík, there were 14 million HW for non-official streams and 10 million HW for official broadcasts, a 56.7%-43.3% ratio. At the VCT: LOCK//IN São Paulo, it was 24 million and 19 million, respectively, or a ratio of 56.5% to 43.5%, which is more or less the same. This proves that the impact of community casters remains as strong as it was at the first international event held in Valorant esports.
tarik was once again the most-watched content creator during the VCT: LOCK//IN São Paulo. His streams regularly outdid the main channel’s broadcasts, which is seen in the fact that he had 7 million HW, the highest for the competition, while also making him the only community channel in the top five.
He also had the second-highest overall PV pull at a pretty solid 190K, behind only the main Valorant channel. His fame endures irrespective of event or stream time, and that only proves the quality of his content and the fact that he is one of the biggest names in the game.
Aim Lab, Red Bull, Prime Gaming enjoy solid chat engagement among sponsors
In terms of the return on investment that sponsors got from the VCT: LOCK//IN São Paulo, a few will be pleased, while others might want to look at what went wrong. The popular names that popped up regularly on the chat of the official Valorant English-language channel across the event were Aim Lab, Red Bull, and Prime Gaming, as they notched 45.6%, 23.1%, and 18.7%, respectively, of the total messages mentioning the sponsors in the chat activity.
AimLab and Red Bull did higher engagement numbers because of special chat commands that triggered auto-messages from bots that were promoting these brands. Prime Gaming was another benefactor of more engagement as some viewers had subscribed to the Valorant channel with the Prime subscription, resulting in this brand being mentioned in their chats alongside other common mentions.
The VCT: LOCK//IN São Paulo got the 2023 Valorant season off to an impressive start, with viewership numbers pointing to more positives as new tournaments come along across the year. For now, fans can rest happy knowing their teams have warmed up well for the challenges ahead.
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