VCT 2023 EMEA League lags far behind other Valorant partner leagues by popularity

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The final matches of three Valorant Champions Tour 2023 partner leagues concluded on May 28th. According to the viewership statistics, the American tournament was much more popular than competitions in other regions, and EMEA showed the lowest viewership numbers. 

The reigning world champion, Brazilian team LOUD, won the American event. Apart from them, NRG Esports and Evil Geniuses also received quotas to VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo by making it into the Top 3. In EMEA, Team Liquid was the strongest and will represent the region in Tokyo, along with Fnatic, FUT Esports, and Natus Vincere. In the Pacific region, the winner was Paper Rex from Singapore. DRX and T1 also received quotas for the upcoming international tournament in Japan. 

Due to the identical format of the leagues, the broadcast times were very similar, but leagues showed different results in terms of overall popularity. VCT 2023 Americas, with teams from North and South America (including Brazil), easily surpassed the EMEA league in terms of all key metrics. Moreover, the Americas event even surpassed big regional tournaments in other popular disciplines.

The Americas, EMEA, and The Pacific Regional Leagues Statistics

VCT 2023 Americas viewership results 

The VCT 2023 Americas matches accumulated 35.8 million Hours Watched. The event saw 205.6K Average Viewers and 554.1K Peak Viewers. LOUD became the most popular team at the tournament, surpassing the other participants by both average concurrent viewership at matches and total Hours Watched.

VCT 2023 EMEA viewership results 

The VCT 2023 EMEA broadcasts totaled 21.2 million Hours Watched, the worst result of any Valorant affiliate league. The Average Viewers number per broadcast was about 119.4K. 

The maximum concurrent number of viewers was recorded during the series between Fnatic and Team Liquid in the Grand Final  303K PV. It is interesting that Team Liquid ranks first in terms of Hours Watched, but it didn't even make it into the Top 5 of its division by Average Viewers.

VCT 2023 Pacific viewership statistics

The VCT 2023 Pacific broadcasts accumulated just over 25 million HW. 138.5 K AV watched the league games, and the most popular game of the season was Paper Rex and DRX, which recorded 399.5K PV. We should note that the Japanese team ZETA DIVISION became the most popular team in the league, although it took only 5th-6th place in the regional standings.

Comparison of The Americas, EMEA and The Pacific Leagues

The Americas became the most watched region among the three leagues, leading by Hours Watched, Peak and Average Viewers. The Pacific came in second place, 28% behind the leader in terms of Peak viewers and 32.5% behind the leader in terms of Average Viewers. And EMEA became the most unpopular league of the three regions, although Europeans got more quotas for VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo.

It should be noted that the top three teams of VCT 2023 LOCK//IN São Paulo have continued to show high results in the long distance as well. All three teams, Fnatic, LOUD and Paper Rex, reached the finals of their regional leagues.

Comparison of VCT 2023 Divisions with Leagues in Other Disciplines

VCT 2023 Americas had the highest audience numbers in 2023 of any other regional tournament oriented toward North or South America.

Comparison of the major North and South American regional leagues' popularity in 2023

VCT 2023 Americas proved far more popular than CDL 2023: Stage 3 Major and BLAST Premier Spring Americas Showdown 2023, two of the most popular U.S. Call of Duty and CS:GO tournaments of the current year. The American Valorant League also drew many more viewers than the LCS Spring 2023 and the CBLOL Split 1 2023 (League of Legends).

The situation was different in EMEA. The Valorant League fell behind the LEC Spring 2023 and BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: European RMR A in terms of Average and Peak Viewers. However, it performed better than the Dota 2 and Apex Legends leagues.

Comparison of the major European regional leagues' popularity in 2023

Interestingly, VCT Americas accumulated more Hours Watched than the spring seasons of the LCS and the CBLOL combined. At the same time, VCT EMEA was much less popular than LEC Spring 2023. As for the Pacific league, it is difficult to compare its results with those of other popular disciplines in the region due to differences in platforms. In Southeast Asia, mobile title tournaments gather the largest audience, where the number of viewers is incomparably higher.

In the following articles, we will analyze each Valorant Champions Tour 2023 league in detail. We will determine the most popular teams, community casters, languages, and broadcast channels, as well as other factors affecting the audience reach.

From June 11th to 25th, a one-million-dollar international event will take place in Japan, VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo. The tournament will feature 12 teams: 10 representatives from affiliate regional leagues, as well as two winners from the Chinese FGC Valorant Invitational 2023: Act 1 league (which was mostly broadcast on local platforms rather than Western services). You can follow the tournament on the coverage page.