It doesn’t sound like everybody is excited about the newly established partnership program for the 2023 VALORANT Champions Tour. In fact, unclear support for the tier two scene combined with high operating costs and a low number of notable thirty-party tournaments has caused some organizations to leave the VALORANT scene altogether.
As of July 22nd, seven teams have recently left the VALORANT scene. This includes DarkZero Esports, NYFU, Luminosity Gaming, Rise, SoaR, Akrew, and Complexity Gaming. All of these entities have either disbanded their VALORANT roster or transferred ownership of the roster to another esports org.
Unfortunately, the bad news doesn’t end there for Riot Games’ first-person shooter. Viewership numbers have recently been on the decline for the VALORANT Champions Tour.
The recently held VCT Masters Copenhagen reportedly recorded a peak viewership of 786,185 people according to Esports Charts. While that might sound like a lot, that is actually the lowest figure to date in the history of international VALORANT tournaments. Moreover, the VCT Masters Copenhagen tournament had the lowest number of average viewers in international VALORANT history at 317,748 people.
The Profit‘s Take:
On an unrelated note, how did the NYFU name come about? Andbox / NYXL deserve an award for the worst branding in history. Anyway, there are some big names on this list. The biggest is obviously Complexity Gaming. Increasingly, I am more and more convinced that VALORANT doesn’t have the ability to take down or overtake CS:GO. And, by that, I mean VALORANT will likely be successful but will not replace CS:GO on a global scale.