VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo has 42% fewer Peak Viewers than LOCK//IN São Paulo

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On June 25, VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo, an international Valorant tournament, concluded in Japan. It gathered slightly more concurrent viewers at peak than last year's event of the series in Copenhagen, but fell behind both tournaments in Reykjavik, as well as lagging far behind VCT 2023: LOCK//IN São Paulo. 

VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo is the main mid-season tournament for Valorant esports and the second international championship (after LOCK//IN) in 2023. Twelve teams participated in the championship: ten representatives from partner leagues, as well as two teams from China (the winners of the FGC Valorant Invitational 2023: Act 1). The tournament had a seeding system, where the strongest teams from the Americas, EMEA, and Pacific leagues began playing from the playoffs, while the other teams had to go through the group stage.

In the final match, Fnatic faced off against Evil Geniuses and won with a score of 3-0. Interestingly, Fnatic only lost one map throughout the entire tournament across four series. It is also worth noting the result of the Chinese team EDward Gaming: the team is not a representative of any of the affiliate leagues, but managed to take 5th-6th place, defeating teams such as Natus Vincere, T1, and LOUD.

Fnatic continues to dominate on the international Valorant scene. In 2023, the team became the champion of two major tournaments — LOCK//IN São Paulo and Masters Tokyo. In the EMEA regional league, it took second place, conceding the lead to Team Liquid.

VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo Viewership Statistics

Overall, the VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo matches accumulated 27.9 million Hours Watched. The Average Viewers number was 338.4K people, and the Peak Viewers number reached 830.3K people.

The most popular match of the tournament is the Grand Final between Fnatic and Evil Geniuses. Interestingly, it attracted almost 200K more viewers than the second most popular match of the tournament, Paper Rex vs. Evil Geniuses. The Top 5 for this metric also includes the show match between Japan and World teams, it was watched by 539.6K Peak Viewers.

Fnatic from the EMEA partner league became the most popular team by Average Viewers per match. Three representatives from the Americas league and one team from the Pacific league also made it into the Top 5 by this metric. At the same time, Evil Geniuses became the leader in total Hours Watched: the American team played seven matches in the tournament, more than any other team. For comparison, Fnatic played only four series to become the champion.

In total, the VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo matches were covered on over 200 live-streaming channels, including official broadcast channels and streams from independent community casters. Altogether, we tracked broadcasts in 25 different languages. The most popular language is English, while Japanese and Portuguese also make it into the Top 3.

Comparison With Other Tournaments

VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo has shown the second-highest peak viewership among all Valorant tournaments in 2023. By this metric, it is only surpassed by VCT 2023: LOCK//IN São Paulo, which had over 1.44 million Peak Viewers. Speaking of all time, the tournament in Tokyo has become the sixth most popular in the history of the discipline.

Most popular tournaments of the VCT Masters series

If we compare the Masters series tournaments, we can see that the championship in Tokyo ranks third by Peak Viewers. It is noteworthy that it is surpassed by two tournaments in Reykjavik, which took place in 2021 and 2022. 

The most popular tournament in the discipline is the Valorant Champions 2022, the final of which was held in September 2022 in Istanbul. Then, 1.5 million viewers watched the decisive match between LOUD and OpTic Gaming concurrently. The upcoming world championship — Valorant Champions 2023 — will be held from August 6 to 26 in Los Angeles.

Also read: From Logitech to HyperX — most popular devices of VCT 2023 Masters Tokyo participants