VCT Masters Bangkok takeaways: Record-breaking Asian audiences fuel Valorant’s growth

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VCT 2025: Masters Bangkok made waves after reaching over 1.3M Peak Viewers for its grand final, becoming the second-most popular Masters event ever. It fell short of only last year’s VCT 2024: Masters Madrid, which benefited from massive English-language viewership for Sentinels’ first international title in years. Conversely, the recent Thailand-based tournament earned its peak thanks to wide-spread interest from diverse demographics, highlighting the growing influence of Valorant on the global stage. 

As we covered in our initial report for Masters Bangkok, Korean-language audiences reached a new peak viewers record for Valorant esports during T1’s victory run. The growing competitiveness of South Korea’s Valorant scene and the participation of its most famous esports organizations have been crucial in bringing this sizable audience to Valorant. Riot Games knows the power of Korean esports audiences from their League of Legends activities, and activating them for Valorant could bring the esports title to even higher heights.

Apart from Korean viewers, there were some other demographics that reached new heights during Masters Bangkok, and even some livestreaming platforms saw new records for Valorant esports. Powered by our extensive viewership database, Esports Charts presents language and platform results for Masters Bangkok to examine its global viewership on a deeper level. 

VCT 2025 Masters Bangkok languages & platforms viewership results

Notably, Portuguese-speaking and English-speaking viewers were rather muted for this tournament. English-language viewership noticeably dropped off after Sentinels’ elimination, excluding the grand finals, and Portuguese-language viewership never really took off without a Brazilian team in attendance. Audiences from the Americas also struggled at Masters Bangkok due to scheduling and timezones, with matches beginning in the early morning hours.

While in the past Valorant’s top peak viewerships have been driven by an English-speaking Twitch audience, this was not the case this year. At Masters Bangkok, Twitch viewership was overshadowed by a more diverse, international audience on YouTube. The red platform hosted top broadcasts for Asian, European, and American audiences, all of which made strong showings for the grand final. Cumulatively, YouTube was able to reach over 600,000 concurrent viewers and set a new record.

One part of this YouTube peak, Vietnamese viewership reached a new record during the Bangkok event; the upward momentum of this audience is a promising sign of growing interest for Valorant in Asia. Asian audiences are some of the fastest-growing viewerships in esports (over 1.1M Vietnamese viewers tuned into last year’s League of Legends world championship), and they could become the backbone of international viewership for the Valorant Champions Tour. 

Japanese audiences also contributed significantly to the total peak, but they have reached far higher viewerships in the past. Japan is one of the initial bases for Valorant in Asia, and although the country has been a strong source of viewership over the years, it has struggled to reach high peaks at international events without a Japanese team present. Japanese-speaking fans were the leading demographic of the VCT 2025: Pacific Kickoff while cheering on local team DetonatioN FocusMe, and even reached almost double the peak viewership of their Masters Bangkok result. 

On the platform’s side, Naver’s CHZZK, a relatively new livestreaming platform out of South Korea, also reached a new record viewership at the event. It has been competing against SOOP Korea (formerly AfreecaTV) for Korean livestreaming viewership in past years, and at Masters Bangkok, CHZZK came out slightly ahead of SOOP Korea in both Average and Peak Viewers. While CHZZK enjoyed a triumphant Masters Bangkok, the results were close, and the fight for Korean esports viewership is still on. 

VCT Masters viewership dynamics for Thai, Korean, & Vietnamese audiences

Throughout Masters Bangkok, Korean, Vietnamese, and Thai viewers were some of the most reliable viewerships for the entire event. These audiences have grown significantly since the inception of the Valorant Champions Tour, and together, Korean, Vietnamese, and Thai accounted for over 20% of the total average viewership at Masters Bangkok. 

Across the historical viewership of Valorant Masters, we can see a steady growth for Korean audiences in particular. Korea is one of esports’ largest global audiences, and the growing representation of the country in Valorant esports is bringing more and more viewers to the title. While Korean organization DRX has been competing for years, T1 and Gen.G joining the VCT Pacific in 2023 caught the eye of many Korean fans — both teams indeed fielded North American rosters for years, but their shift to Korea in 2023 marked the beginning of their real success. 

At the VCT 2025 Pacific Kickoff, Korean teams dominated the competition. DRX, T1, and Gen.G took up the podium spots, and even the debut Ascension team Nongshim RedForce from Korea finished in tied-fifth. The strong competitive results of Korean teams has helped get Korean fans interested in Valorant, and T1’s international title at Masters Bangkok saw Korean average viewership more than double.

Crucially, Thai and Vietnamese audiences have continued to grow for Valorant events despite having little to cheer for. The Thai roster of TALON was unfortunately unable to best the Korean competition at the Kickoff to qualify for Bangkok, and Vietnamese fans have no singular player to rally behind in the VCT Pacific. The potential of these languages could be significantly higher with a team to cheer for, but first they have to overcome the strong Korean competition. 

VCT 2025 Masters Bangkok top co-casters for Korean and Thai viewers

While official broadcasts are generally the most popular options for fans to watch Valorant events, co-streamers bring a certain personal flair to the scene. These results can provide insights to where and how esports fans are broadcasting Valorant, not only how many of them tuned in. 

Last year, the most-watched Korean Valorant co-streamers were all based on CHZZK. As the country’s viewership grew for Masters Bangkok, it spread more evenly across both platforms, and some top streamers of Masters Bangkok like Kim “도현ツ” Dohyeon and Kim “김된모!” Doenmo have even moved from CHZZK to AfreecaTV; last year, these two creators were two of Valorant’s most-watched Korean co-casters thanks to their CHZZK streams. 

Both of these streamers are also former esports professionals, a common history for esports co-casters, but some of the other top Korean streamers included 마뫄 (ma_mwa) and 행돌 (hangdol), two casual Valorant streamers based on CHZZK. Thai co-casting was similar, with a variety of esports professionals and content creators driving viewership for the region.

On Thai side, Patiphan “CigaretteS TV” Posri stood out ahead of the crowd as the most-watched co-streamer of the event. He currently works for Paper Rex as a content creator, although he previously competed as a player in Valorant, Counter-Strike, and PUBG esports. He is one of Thailand’s most famous esports celebrities, and his move to co-streaming and content creation will likely be a driving force behind the growth of Valorant esports in his home country. 

Not only are Thai and Korean Valorant fans interested in the competitive side of the game, but they are also developing strong communities built around world-leading esports organizations and entertaining content creators. Alongside Vietnamese and Japanese, these Asian demographics show strong promise for Valorant esports broadcasting in the future.

Masters Bangkok’s viewership results are a testament to the growing, global fan base for Valorant esports. Even with poor viewership from the Americas, the event was able to become the second-most popular Masters ever due to the rapidly growing audiences in Asia and contributions of other international demographics. Year-on-year, Valorant continues to grow, and 2025 could see it continue to push new records and heights across passionate regional fan bases.