After three years, Sentinels finally claimed another international VCT trophy yesterday. But they’re also back in the record books after setting a new viewership milestone for all of VALORANT.
The grand finals of VCT Masters Madrid 2024, pitting Sentinels against Gen.G, was the most-viewed VALORANT match in the game’s short history, with 1.665 million viewers tuning in during its peak, according to Esports Charts. Earlier during the match, Sentinels vs. Gen.G passed the record for the most-viewed Masters event but more viewers tuned in as the series went to its fifth map, eventually surpassing the peak viewership record held by the Champions 2022 final between OpTic and LOUD.
Before the start of Masters Madrid, Sentinels only had one match with a peak viewership number over one million, which fittingly came during the last time they won an international VCT trophy. Sentinels’ win over Fnatic at Masters Reykjavík 2021 peaked at 1.085 million viewers, which of course was the highest peak in VALORANT at the time.
But both the VALORANT and Sentinels brands have continued to grow in the years since. At Masters Madrid, Sentinels had three matches that attracted over one million viewers, obviously including the now all-time record-breaking grand final against Gen.G. Sentinels also technically can claim the channel with the highest peak viewership during the final as Tarik posted the highest viewership peak during Madrid with over 290,000 viewers.
The record for the grand final is even more impressive considering it was also competing directly with the final day of the Elimination Stage of the first CS2 Major at PGL Copenhagen, with prolific CS2 rosters like G2 and NAVI in action.
This success at Masters Madrid sets up the 2024 VCT season to be another record-breaking year for VALORANT, especially if teams with super popular fan bases like Sentinels, LOUD, Karmine Corp, Paper Rex, and others can manage to reach the year’s biggest event, Champions 2024.
