VCT EMEA Challengers Split 1 region viewership deep dive and comparison

VALORANT Champions Tour Challengers represents the second tier of the competitive ecosystem that has come into life in 2023. With VCT International Leagues being the top flight Tier 1 circuit that currently is only made up of Riot-partnered teams, Challengers is the only gateway for teams to enter the elusive International Leagues and be able to compete at events such as Masters and Champions. This piece aims to have a closer look at the viewership of Split 1 in the EMEA region and see the disparities in viewers and hours watched between all the regions.

The Challengers system

As mentioned, Challengers offers teams a chance at getting themselves a spot at VCT International Leagues. It's an extremely slim chance paired with a gruelling season that is made up of two Splits that involve a round-robin format in the League followed by a playoffs stage. In such a way, teams accumulate points depending on their placing in the playoffs. The team from each Challenger League with the highest points after the two Splits conclude advances to one of three Ascension events pertaining to their region; Americas, EMEA, or Pacific. Therefore, there are three Ascension events at the end of the season. Getting a spot in Ascension is a hefty task in itself. And yet, only the winner of Ascension will advance to be a part of the VCT International Leagues the following season. Therefore, only three teams qualify for International Leagues.

It is also worth noting that in the 2023 season, there are a total of 23 Challenger events globally. Of those 23 events, 9 are held in EMEA.

The advancement system is rather complex and given that there are 23 events oftentimes happening simultaneously, it makes it a near-impossible task to keep up with each Challenger region for an ordinary VALORANT afficionado. Still, the system ensures that only the best of the best have the elusive chance of being a part of the exclusive VCT International Leagues club.

EMEA regions division

The EMEA Challengers have been divided into separate countries and regions. Riot has identified which countries should have a league of their own due to potential competitiveness and interest, and grouped up countries into one league where they deemed it necessary. EMEA has for the most part retained 2022's VALORANT Regional Leagues division with a few additions and alterations coming into 2023. VALORANT Regional Leagues in 2022 was an independent tier 2 tournament that was a sort of precursor to the format of today's Challenger Leagues. However, the winner reaped no benefits by winning the event apart from a large share of the prize pool, a trophy, and the prestige of being crowned the best team of VALORANT's tier 2 scene in the EMEA region.

The EMEA Challenger Leagues are composed of:

• Northern Europe: Polaris
• Spain: Rising
• East: Surge
• MENA: Resilience
  • Levant and North Africa
  • GCC and Iraq
• Italy: Rinascimento
• Portugal: Tempest
• France: Revolution
• DACH: Evolution
• Turkey: Birlik

EMEA's Split 1 viewership

If there is one word to describe the viewership of the EMEA Challenger Leagues of Split 1 then it must be "fragmented". To add to that, extremely uneven across the board. Naturally, it was a given that not all regions would boast solid viewership numbers. Despite that, the data has come out to show extremely low numbers in some, and very high views by comparison in others. There's a number of reasons ranging from organizations' fan bases, sponsors, established teams, and overall interest in VALORANT being much higher in certain countries and regions such as Spain, Turkey or France.

The infographic below shows viewership data of each Challenger League from Split 1 of competition.

The Leagues have been ordered from the most total viewership to the least total viewership. Turkey: Birlik takes spot one with nearly 5 million in total viewership with over 6 thousand average viewers tuning into matches. By comparsion, MENA: Resilience, a region that was segmented even more into Levant and North Africa, and GCC and Iraq, totaled just under 190 thousand in total viewership with only 709 and 579 average viewers respectively. A truly stark difference between Leagues that are a part of the same ecosystem and region.

New regions added to Challengers, Portugal: Tempest and Italy: Rinascimento sit towards the end of viewership with almost 213 thousand and 310 thousand in total viewership respectively. Additionally, the Portuguese Challengers had the lowest average viewers, 525, out of all the EMEA leagues.

The match with the highest peak viewership came out to be the grand finale of France: Revolution between SBG and Mandatory at almost 45k viewers. To put into perspective, that match had a higher viewership than the total viewership of MENA Levant and North Africa, which had a total viewership of just over 36k. Mandatory, despite losing the final, was the most watched team out of all the teams in the EMEA Challengers at an enormous 482 hours watched accumulated over the entirety of Split 1.

Middle of the table is occupied by East: Surge and Northern Europe: Polaris. Both saw respectable numbers with a total viewership in numbers crossing the 1 million mark for East, yet only half that for Polaris at just over 600k. Polaris also ran into financial troubles as the tournament organizer of the event, Promod, causing a lack of official game streams and other unfavorable repercussions. This may have had an impact on the event's viewership towards the end of the event and may hinder the event's Split 2 viewership.

Spain: Rising came out to be third in third following the end of Split 1, sitting at almost 2.2 million total viewership. A large VALORANT fanbase paired with respectable teams participating in the Split have had a huge impact on the end numbers of this particular League, much like France and Turkey.

Lastly, DACH: Evolution, the central-European League, has had rather poor results when it comes to viewership over the course of Split 1. With over 230k total viewers, the League only overtook Portugal: Tempest and the MENA region, situating itself in 3rd-last. What's interesting is that the grand finale between CGN Esports and Unicorns of Love, did not make it into the top five most watched matches of the event.

Takeaway

The event saw a rather fragmented viewership across the board, with some regions having a respectable thousands of viewers tuning into matches while others saw viewers in the hundreds. The EMEA Challenger Leagues are also plagued by lacking financial support in some region, Polaris being the first to see the effects of that, having real implications on viewing experience of the League.

With VCT Challengers Split 2 underway, we will be keen to see the differences in viewership at the end of the event and whether the numbers will stay relatively the same, increase, or begin to dwindle.

*Feature image credit: Riot Games