Leo Faria, Valorant Esports' Global Head, revealed that Valorant Champions 2024 viewership was five times higher than in Valorant Champions 2023. He also revealed that the Valorant Champions 2024 peak viewership was 9.1 million people. Leo Faria also unveiled that "we will put the official numbers up soon."
On December 11, 2023, Leo Faria announced that Valorant Champions 2023 had over 1.8 million peak viewers, which was slightly better than Valorant Champions 2022 as the event peaked at 1.5 million concurrent viewers.
The reason behind this year's astonishing growth can be found in China. According to Leo Faria, around 80% of the Valorant Champions 2024 viewership came from the Asian country. But, why? Well, there are three main reasons to explain it.
First and most important, VCT 2024 China's EDward Gaming ended up winning the tournament after defeating Team Heretics in the grand final. Before that, the Chinese roster played against various esports powerhouses including G2 Esports, Sentinels, and last year's grand finalists, Paper Rex.
Secondly, the growth of the VCT 2024 China in what has been the league's first year has arguably increased Valorant's popularity in China. Developed by Riot Games, which is owned by China's Tencent, Valorant is the leading FPS in the country.
Last but not least, Chinese fans had it easy to follow the Valorant Champions 2024 as the competition was held in South Korea. This means that China was only one hour behind the official schedule of the competition.
For comparison, the time between China and last year's location, Los Angeles, was 15 hours. Therefore, the Valorant Champions 2023 elimination match between the Chinese sides EDward Gaming and Bilibili Gaming, which was played at 3 PM in Los Angeles, was played at 6 AM in China.
In conclusion, the expectation caused by EDward Gaming, the growth of Valorant in China, and the time difference made it easy for China to massively follow Valorant Champions 2024.