VCT Pacific Stage 1 records over 500,000 peak viewers

VCT Pacific, the Pacific league of the VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT), has recorded increased peak viewing figures following the conclusion of Stage 1 of its 2024 season.

VCT Pacific Stage 1 was the second event of the region’s 2024 season where 11 teams from the Asia-Pacific region competed to secure qualification to VCT Masters Shanghai.

Southeast Asian esports organisation Paper Rex won the VCT Pacific Stage 1 Playoffs after beating multi-national organisation Gen.G in the grand final. The series was the most popular match of the Stage followed by a regular-season match between the two teams which recorded a peak viewership of 427,444. Paper Rex was featured in four of the five most-watched matches of Stage One.

Gen.G and Paper Rex were the two most-watched teams over the course of the first stage, recording 7m hours while T1 had the third-highest with 5.5m hours watched.

Japanese broadcasts had the highest peak viewership of the event at 229,208 with English close behind at 193,704. The other top five languages were Thai (59,878), Korean (52,669) and Indonesian (34,011).

Compared to VCT Pacific League 2023, 2024 saw a significant rise in peak viewers (509,448 compared to 399,520) but recorded 3m fewer hours watched (22.1m compared to 25m).

The increase in peak viewership is a continuation of an upward trend for VALORANT esports. The VCT 2024: Masters Madrid event became the most-watched VALORANT tournament in history, with Riot Games starting it attracted 3.1m peak viewers and an average minute audience of 1.1m.

The next VCT competition is VCT 2024: Masters Shanghai which begins on May 23rd and concludes on June 9th.