As VALORANT and its esports scene through the VCT continues to grow around the world, one region that keeps absolutely shining when it comes to fan support is Japan. The country has produced a rabid and dedicated fan base, and that’s been reflected in the VCT viewership numbers during Champions 2022.
For the month of September, according to Esports Charts and Streams Charts, the VALORANT Japan channel on YouTube kept pace with both of the main channels for VCT and the Overwatch League in hours watched. The main VCT channel amassed 3.05 million hours watched and OWL generated 2.9 million hours watched, but VALORANT Japan alone produced 2.63 million hours watched.
The regional channel just for Japanese VALORANT fans generating 86 percent of the total hours watched on the global channel, with less than half the total airtime to work with, is truly remarkable. These results are a welcome sign to VALORANT and VALORANT esports, a scene that doesn’t even exclusively stream on YouTube and gets most of its viewership from Twitch.
As an event, VALORANT Champions 2022, the game’s second world championship, broke every major viewership milestone for the game. It was the most watched VALORANT event in total hours watched with over 60 million, and it shattered the previous peak viewership number when it reached the 1.5 million peak viewer mark during the OpTic vs. LOUD grand final. The group stage match between Japan’s ZETA Division and LOUD was the fifth most watched of the event, with 773,000 peak viewers.
