VCT Americas Stage 1 delivers mixed viewership figures

VCT Americas, the highest competitive tier of VALORANT in North and South America, has seen a drop in peak viewership for its first stage in 2024.

VCT Americas League 2024 Stage 1 saw a total of 496,845 peak viewers, which is a decline compared to last year, according to esports data company Esports Charts. However, the event’s average viewership of 241,142 did increase from VCT Americas League 2023’s 205,618 figure.

The VCT Americas is one of VALORANT’s four semi-closed international leagues and features the likes of LOUD, NRG, Evil Geniuses and Sentinels. When compared to other regions, the Americas is the most successful region at VALORANT Champions with two winners — Evil Geniuses (2023) and LOUD (2022). Interestingly, the region’s season kickoff event earlier this year had almost the double number of viewers than VCT Americas Stage 1.

Despite its popularity, the first segment of the VCT Americas 2024, called Stage 1, has shown a slight viewership drop when compared to last year’s VCT Americas League. The Americas League, which only had one split for its 2023 season, recorded 554,000 peak viewers compared to this year’s 496,845 peak viewers.

The grand final of the VCT Americas 2024 Stage 1, played between 100 Thieves and G2 Esports, garnered only around 294,000 peak viewers. This is one of the rare occasions where the grand final of a tournament failed to place in the top five most-watched matches. The most-watched match was actually G2 Esports vs LOUD during the group stage. According to Esports Charts, no matches from the playoffs ended up in the top five.

The lower viewership might be attributed to the fact that none of the historically more popular teams in the league made the playoffs, with Sentinels, NRG and EG all failing to qualify. This left viewers with arguably less popular teams in the knockout stage, including the likes of KRU Esports and Leviatan. The eventual finalists also seemed to fail to attract a substantial audience to the grand final.

The lower viewership might also be attributed to the changes in format, with Riot Games creating two groups called Alpha and Omega for the Stage 1 tournament. Interestingly, other VCT regions, such as the Pacific and EMEA, saw good viewership for their Stage One events.