100 Thieves confidently defeated NRG 3-1 in an all-North American Grand Final to become the Esports World Cup 2026 VALORANT champions. For the club, this triumph marked a significant milestone and their first international title in this discipline. However, the fans' joy was overshadowed by disappointing viewership figures, which once again caused the community to worry about the game's future.
The broadcast statistics for VALORANT at this year's EWC recorded a serious decline in audience interest:
- Peak viewership dropped by 45% compared to last year's tournament.
- Total hours watched decreased by 13%.
The scale of this decline in interest becomes obvious when compared to other games at the same festival. The VALORANT Grand Final drew only 248,000 peak viewers.
Meanwhile, an intermediate qualification stage (survival stage) in Dota 2—which was not even a final—attracted over 264,000 peak viewers. This means a regular match in the Dota 2 bracket proved more popular than the decisive championship match in VALORANT.
The situation looks even more concerning against the backdrop of successes achieved by VALORANT's main competitor in the tactical shooter genre.
According to Esports Insider, the IEM Cologne tournament set an all-time record for CS2, drawing 2.75 million peak viewers over a single weekend. In contrast, VALORANT's major tournament, VCT Masters London, topped out at around 1 million viewers.
The gap in audience numbers between the two shooters continues to widen rapidly, and the Esports World Cup 2026 results only highlighted this trend.
Reminder, Riot Games has released the full Teamfight Tactics patch schedule for 2026.