VCT LOCK//IN Brazil opening day attracts large viewership
According to Esports Charts’ statistics website, VCT LOCK//IN Brazil’s opening day attracted massive audiences, with a peak of nearly 540,000 concurrent viewers and an average of 369,011 viewers.
Throughout the opening day, 476,682 people watched on Twitch, while only 70,266 watched on YouTube. At its peak, the English stream had about 240,000 viewers, while the Spanish stream had about 135,000 viewers.
The most watched game of the first day was when NRG took on KOI, a match between the European and North American rivals.
The second game of the first day, between the European team Giants Gaming and the Japanese team Detonation FocusMe, drew a peak audience size of 376,750.
The first day of VCT LOCK//IN Brazil had the fourth-highest peak viewership of any VALORANT event. The two highest-charting VALORANT streams are VALORANT Champions 2022 and 2021, with respective peaks of 807,007 and 690,930. In third place is VCT 2021 Masters Reykjavík, with a peak viewer count of 605,623 viewers.
Before the international leagues in Europe, Asia and the Americas will get their seasons underway, VCT LOCK/IN serves as a warming-up event. The champion in Brazil will earn their region an additional qualification spot for the VCT Masters Tokyo.
With teams like Sentinels, LOUD, Karmine Corp and ZETA DIVISION competing, VCT LOCK//IN Brazil’s viewership will likely skyrocket as the tournament progresses.
Before the season-ending VALORANT Champions 2022 event, ZETA DIVISION was ranked as the most popular in the world by Esports Charts in August 2022, with an average viewership of 271,700.
VCT LOCK//IN Brazil details, schedule
VCT LOCK//IN Brazil started the 2023 VALORANT Champions Tour, which features 30 partner teams from the EMEA, Pacific and Americas leagues and two invited Chinese teams, FunPlus Phoenix and EDward Gaming.
The tournament lasts from February 13 through March 4 at Ginásio do Ibirapuera in São Paulo.
The 10,000-seat arena has hosted esports events such as the finals of CBLOL 2022’s second split and the LATAM last-chance qualifier for VALORANT Champions 2022.
Each of the 32 competing teams will face elimination after three rounds, with the first three rounds using a best-of-three format. All matches in the semifinals and final will be best-of-five series.
Riot Games used a random draw to maximize the number of cross-regional matchups for the opening round of matches.
It split the 16 pairings evenly between the Alpha and Omega halves of the bracket to increase the likelihood of second-round matches between teams from different regions.
The second day of the competition featured three matches between members of the Alpha group.
Day 2 began with a match between the Chinese team FunPlus Phoenix (FPX) and Karmine Corp of EMEA and continued with the Turkish BBL Esports facing the Korean DRX. Day 2 ended in a classic showdown between Cloud9 (C9) and Singapore’s Paper Rex (PRX).
Day 3 starts with Heretics pitted against Evil Geniuses in Round of 32. After that, fans and viewers can watch Brazilian team MIBR compete against Southeast Asia’s Talon Esports. The final match of Day 3 will be between reigning world champions LOUD and Korean team Gen.G, initially scheduled for February 13.
The highlight match on Day 4 is between NRG Esports and Giants Gaming. On Day 5, fans and viewers can expect an exciting match between DRX and C9.
