With Kickoff, both Masters events, and both stages of the International Leagues complete, the VCT’s top-tier circuit is heading into its final event of 2026: Champions Shanghai. Ahead of the world championship, Esports Charts compares the viewership of those completed events with their 2025 counterparts, examining the impact of the expanded schedule and shifts across platforms and broadcast languages.
Together, these Valorant tournaments generated more than 218 million Hours Watched in 2026, up 3.1% year over year. Average Viewers, however, fell by 17.4%, while Peak Viewers declined by 18.7%.
The increase in Hours Watched was largely driven by a 24.5% rise in Airtime. Stage 2’s expanded format added Challengers teams to the competition through Play-Ins, increasing the number of participating teams and matches. Results varied across leagues. Americas Stage 2 recorded a 33.5% increase in Hours Watched despite a 5.3% decline in Average Viewers. EMEA Stage 2, meanwhile, gained 6.6% in Hours Watched as its Average Viewers fell by 21.5%.
Across the tournaments analyzed, Twitch accounted for less than half of total Hours Watched in 2026. Kick’s share rose from 0.2% in 2025 to 4.6% in 2026.
Japanese- and Portuguese-language broadcasts increased their Hours Watched by 24.6% and 20.7%, respectively. Watch time also grew across Vietnamese-, Indonesian-, and Thai-language streams.
English remained the leading broadcast language across the events analyzed, although its Hours Watched fell by around 3% year over year. Spanish- and Korean-language broadcasts recorded larger declines in watch time, down 23.9% and 16%, respectively.
Valorant Champions Shanghai 2026, running from September 24 to October 18, will provide the next major benchmark for VCT viewership in 2026. Follow its audience statistics on Esports Charts.