VCT 2025 Stage 2 viewership stabilises, but volatility remains

The VCT Stage 2 2025 competitive season has come to an end across all of Riot Games’ international leagues, with the best teams now heading to Paris for the VALORANT Champions 2025.

However, whilst all leagues will all send four representatives, viewership trends during VCT Stage 2 varied sharply across the board. VCT Pacific is surging to new heights with strong peaks, VCT Americas faced a big slide, VCT EMEA is building decent momentum, and VCT China is showing signs of a stronger fanbase.

Esports Insider takes a look at all four international leagues to analyse the popularity of VCT Stage 2 2025. Viewership statistics are sourced by esports data platform Esports Charts.

VCT EMEA saw growth in peak audience numbers in this year’s Stage 2, though the average remained stable compared to last year.

The region recorded a peak viewership of 274,774, up from 199,788 in 2024, according to Esports Charts, while the average viewership ticked up slightly from 96,376 to 99,337. The slight increase is more emphasised by the longer broadcast schedule — 123 hours of airtime compared to 90 hours in 2024 — suggesting a more consistent audience.

The most-watched series of 2025 was BBL vs Team Liquid, followed by Team Heretics vs M8 (200,772), BBL vs M8 (188,095), Fnatic vs Karmine Corp (178,447), and FUT vs M8 (169,427). Interestingly, the grand final between Team Liquid and GIANTX failed to reach the top five most popular matches.

Aside from the peak viewership, this year’s popular matches recorded similar numbers to the 2024 Stage 2, showing a consistent interest in the league.

VCT Americas Stage 2 2025, on the other hand, saw a notable decline in overall viewership compared to 2024.

This year’s competition recorded a peak viewership of 295,084, down from 394,975 the previous season. Average viewership also fell from 203,829 to 155,558 and total hours watched reached 18.278m.

The most-watched series was a week four match between 100 Thieves vs LOUD, peaking at 295,084 viewers. LOUD proved to be a strong drive in viewership in the league, as the Brazilian team was featured in four of the five most-watched matches.

This is further proved by the language distribution: English streams led with 168,793 peak viewers, followed by Portuguese with 145,933, and Spanish with 62,780, according to Esports Charts.

By comparison, the 2024 Stage 2 featured stronger numbers, with matches such as G2 vs Leviatán (last year’s grand final) and EG vs LOUD peaking at nearly 400,000, showcasing signs of volatility in the league’s viewership. Moreover, this year, no playoff matches were featured in the top 5 most popular match-ups during VCT Stage 2.

In comparison, VCT Pacific continues to experience strong growth in peak viewership, even though its average audience slipped. The league reached a peak of 426,912 viewers, nearly 100,000 higher than the previous year, but average figures dipped slightly from 163,033 to 155,918.

The peak was reached during the grand finals between RRQ vs Paper Rex, with other standout matches including RRQ vs Talon (377,910), T1 vs RRQ (334,624), and PRX vs Talon (322,681), confirming RRQ and PRX as key audience magnets in the league.

Unlike the previous two leagues, the competition’s playoffs proved to be a major draw, with the top four most popular matchups occurring during that stage of the event.

There has also been a major shift in the language distribution. In VCT Pacific Stage 2 2025, Japanese streams peaked at 153,488 viewers, down from last year’s 235,302. Meanwhile, English-language broadcasts reached 142,313. This was partially driven by ZETA and DFM’s high engagement in last year’s stage 2, which saw both teams featured in the most-watched series of the split 2.

VCT China showed signs of stabilisation in 2025, maintaining comparable peaks to last year while significantly improving in average viewership. The league recorded a peak audience of 37,537, slightly below 39,601 in 2024, but its average viewership more than doubled from 5,027 to 10,555. That being said, data recorded by Esports Charts doesn’t include Chinese mainland viewership, so it is hard to truly analyse the league’s domestic success..

The most-watched matchup of the split was EDG vs Trace Esports in the playoffs. Other strong showings included FPX vs Wolves (33,109), EDG vs BLG (31,210), and the grand final between DRG vs BLG (30,001).

The jump in sustained viewership in 2025 suggests the league is gradually building a more consistent fanbase outside of China, even if its ceiling remains behind the other VCT regions.