According to Esports Charts, Valorant Challengers 2023 North America Split 1 averaged 55,447 viewers while Valorant Challengers 2023 Japan Split 1 attracted an average of 73,114 viewers.
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Nobody anticipated Valorant in Japan would grow to be this significant. In 2023, the nation played host to VCT Masters Tokyo, the first-ever international Valorant competition. Since console gaming has long dominated this nation, PC gaming has declined in popularity. But since its release in 2020, the FPS game Valorant has become so popular that it now has the most viewers in the franchised Asian Pacific region.
More people watch the Japan Challengers series than in North America, a competition one level below franchising. According to Esports Charts, Valorant Challengers 2023 North America Split 1 averaged 55,447 viewers while Valorant Challengers 2023 Japan Split 1 attracted an average of 73,114 viewers.
Even when we compare Split 2, Japan had an additional 231 viewers and over 1.3 million viewing hours. The biggest shock occurred during the actual Masters Tokyo, where not a single Japanese team had qualified. The Tipster Dome Chiba and Makuhari Messe venues, despite this, were crowded and sold out.
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Tetsuya “OooDa” Okagami, a seasoned Japanese FPS caster who has been a part of Valorant since First Strike in 2020, was one of the key players overseeing the broadcast during the group stage, playoffs, and finals. This implied that not a single Japanese player or team would be present at Masters Tokyo, Japan, yet the stadiums were packed, which surprised OooDa as well.
At the international level, they lost in the first round of the Master’s Berlin 2021 competition but unexpectedly advanced far in the Masters Reykjavik 2022 competition. They shocked everyone by defeating APAC rivals DRX and Paper Rex 2-1 in the lower bracket after losing their first match in the upper bracket to G2 Esports.
The team that went on to win the championship, OpTic Gaming, eventually eliminated them in a sweeping manner in the lower bracket final. ZETA Division, who competed in the first VCT Pacific 2023, was eager to represent their nation at Masters Tokyo but had already begun to struggle. After losing to Team Secret and T1 in the playoff round to end their run, they placed fourth with a 5-4 match record.
“I was very scared and anxious at first, but within these two to three years, the efforts of the Riot Games staff and everyone involved in the organization of this event have come to fruition,” he told ONE Esports.“There’s a culture in Japan where you have all these idols and superstars — and you want to support them,” OooDa continued. “‘Oshi’ is a relatively new word that we use to describe this. That’s the same case for Valorant.”
Supporting talent is not just a feature of esports. Superstars like Shohei Ohtani in the major baseball league are supported by the locals naturally. They also acknowledge each person’s extraordinary abilities “regardless of gender or nationality” at the same time. Tom Cruise, who enjoys enormous popularity in Japan, was used as an illustration. According to Deadline, the Hollywood A-film lister’s Top Gun: Maverick, which earned US$101.5 million and played in Japanese theaters for an entire year, set records and made history there.
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Because they are the best professional players in the world who displayed their skills, personalities, and flair on stage, Japanese fans have come out in support of them even though all of the teams in Valorant Masters are foreign. They came dressed in jerseys, wrote signs, and cheered in every way possible.
When OooDa began working on the game three years ago, he had no idea it would eventually accumulate to a scale as large as Masters Tokyo. “I must give credit to the streamers who shared inspirational content. I think they’re the ones who brought the game to such a large audience in Japan,” he said. He was also instrumental in its development as a well-known esports shout caster; Japanese viewers of his cast have approached him to express their gratitude because they say his commentary style made them appreciate Valorant even more.
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