Image credit: VALORANT Esports/Riot Games
VCT Masters Madrid broke viewership records that were held for the past two years.
The first international VALORANT tournament of the year, VCT Masters Madrid was recently concluded a few days ago as Sentinels took down Gen.G Esports 3-2 in the grand finals. This was the team's first VCT Masters trophy since Reykjavík in 2021 and its second overall since being a part of the VCT.
But unlike the grand finals in Finland, Madrid saw far greater numbers than it did three years ago. According to Esports Charts, VCT Masters Madrid brought in a peak viewership of 1.6 million. This was 600,000 more than the VCT Masters Reykjavík, which had about a million viewers at its peak. The only commonality between the two was Sentinels' victory in both as both Gen.G and Fnatic have failed to best the VCT Americas squad in a grand finals.
And not only did Masters Madrid now become the most-viewed VCT tournament thus far, it also beat out other extraordinary grand finals like at VCT Champions 2022 between OpTic Gaming and LOUD that drew 1.5 million in peak viewership. It also beat out the VCT LOCK//IN grand final last season between Fnatic and LOUD, which stood at 1.44 million as well as last year's VCT Champions that had only 1.29 million that watched Evil Geniuses beat Paper Rex.
One way that the VCT has managed to garner so much attention to its tournaments is not only through its gameplay, but also the wider VALORANT community like its streamers and content creators for example. This has been part of the VCT's identity for quite some time now as larger international tournaments would always have a variety of popular streamers doing a live stream at the event.
The likes of former CS:GO pro-turned-streamer for Sentinels, Tarik "tarik" Celik was one of the big names that hosted watch parties for VCT Masters Madrid, which brought in over a million in unique viewers to his live stream. Another notable streamer that hosted plenty of watch parties is Kyedae “Kyedae” Alicia Shymko, a content creator with 100 Thieves as well as the other half of Tyson “tenZ” Ngo.
