I'll tell you know, this is a long thread. Lot's of stats and shit. So, in short, I'm using current metrics to figure out the goal of franchising for Riot. Covering a ton of questions that I've seen on VLR in the past few days, and I'll try to answer them.
NOTE : This is using outside facts and what makes sense to me as an individual. I'm not covering snuffed teams and shit for franchising, but I'm trying to figure out why this is an approach Riot is taking.
Question 1 - Why is Riot making 3, 10 team Regional Leagues?
As we all know, Riot has said there will be 3 separate regional leagues : The America's (LATAM, Brazil, North America), EMEA (Europe, CIS), and Asian Pacific (Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, etc.). The big problem here, in my opinion, is the 10 team limit in each league. That is a limit of 30 international teams. So, at this point, I'm getting into my stats. I took a look at Riot's other large game with International leagues, League of Legends. Lol was release in 2009 and received a birth to competitive leagues three years later in 2012. Valorant has gotten a slightly similar start, being released in 2020 and now getting Riot leagues in 2023. From my findings, and swiftly passing by LoL as a whole, I could find that 2 leagues kinda started in 2012, Korea and Brazil. Later on, in 2013, NA, Europe, and China all got league stuffs as well.
At this point, almost 10 years later, there are 12 main leagues and 117 teams participating. So, Valorant has 30 teams in 3 leagues while LoL has 117 in 12 leagues. Well, that's fair since League gets way more viewers, right? LoL does get more views, but not way more views, especially for some 10 year old leagues. There are just two mainview leaders : Korea and Europe. Before I talk about those two, I'm gonna talk about some of the closer Regions of Valorant vs LoL viewership.
This is taking an Approximated average of Lol in the last 3 years while taking the Stage 2 stats for Valorant.
LATAM - LoL and Valorant are at a similar point, Valorant is just a bit more popular having an average viewership of around 10k more (36K vs ~24k) while having almost the same peak, hovering around 90k in Val and 80k in LoL
Brazil - LoL in Brazil is around 3x of what it's viewership in Valorant is. Consistent for the peaks (140k in Val vs around 300k in lol) and the average viewership (40k in Val vs 120k in LoL)
Asian Pacific and Vietnam - In Lol they have separate leagues but in Valorant they were both represented in the APAC region. In Asia Pacific (LoL), average viewership is from 15k to 20k, peaking from 55k to 95k. Vietnam does like 35k - 45k average, and peaks all the way from 120K to 230K. APAC in Valorant averages 33k, and can peak around 70k to 100K.
Now, let's talk about the LoL giants of South Korea and EMEA and how fucking sad their Valorant view ship is in comparison. Each region lowballs peak view ship of 700K and can reach peaks of 1.0 million (230k - 300k average) in Europe, and South Korea is the BIGGEST getting peaks of 1.3 million views. EMEA is less sad in Valorant, where that can do peaks of 150K more recently when BBL plays while in Stage 1 they could hit over 200k peaks. Over the two stages, stage 1 averaged around 95k while Stage 2 dropped to 69k.
Now Korea. averaging from 200k to 250k per match while being able to deliver the biggest peaks in LoL when T1 plays. They must be HUGE in Valorant as well, right? Peaking at 36k viewers in both stages and having around 14k average viewers for their matches. That is a huge shell of their production in LoL.
So why do I talk about these two huge regions in such a critical light? Because they carry LoL, I feel like Riot expects more from these regions in order to feel success in a competitive scene. I didn't talk about China, but they are around the 3rd biggest viewership in the world, but have no feats in Valorant. Like, the Chinese Valorant stream had 56 viewers last night while K1 was playing. Regardless, the fact that the two largest regions for Lol are the 3rd and least viewed regions for Valorant is a major concern for Riot's confidence. Maybe Korea will wake up one day and Valorant in the region will spike. Who knows. But, until that day, I doubt Riot will have enough confidence to have the regional leagues in Valorant to the degree of LoL.
Some wide eyed readers maybe notice how there are some LoL leagues I didn't mention. CIS I didn't mention since it overlaps with EMEA's Valorant league and, well, I couldn't find it on the viewership site that I'm using. Same think with the Oceania league, which roles into APAC. Finally is Turkey, which seems decently popular with around a 60k peak. But, roles into EMEA. Just REALLY makes the EMEA Valorant viewership look even more sad.
But here are the big two, North America Valorant and the LCS, along with Japanese Valorant and the LJL. LCS, the fourth largest league in LoL and the LJL, which is around Latin America in terms of viewership. I saved these two since NA and Japan have now shown to be the two largest regions for Valorant. The two biggest in Stage 2 as well as NA in LCQ who is averaging around 200k viewership in NON Sentinel games, while Sentinels can pull 450k and 625k viewers for domestic games against small orgs. Japan has also been the most rapidly improving region, but that's another talk. These two teams are the hope of Valorant, and if they can grow further it'll progress how wide Riot can spread leagues.
So what was the point of the whole section : I think Riot is still a little scared the Valorant won't become a big (top 5) esport. I think the reason Riot is keeping this to 3 leagues stems from a few factors in which the lack of European and Korean involvement is the largest. It's like when you go through progression in your life, whether it's a new job or moving to a different city, and your support pillars don't assist you. It's scary to not have what you had thought was guaranteed assistance is not there.
So, Riot got two new regions to support them in NA and Japan, and from that they decided to pursue smaller leagues than what is good for the professional ecosystem and favoring one to grow the sport's reach. Now, what do I mean with this? I think the reason Riot is only having 30 teams under them, as well as choosing good overall orgs rather than consistent Valorant orgs is to grow the esport's play and viewership through external means. For example, T1 is likely going to get a Korean spot instead of continuing in North America. As they are one of the biggest Korean LoL teams, this may bring in LoL fans that cheer for Korea. My point with it being 10 team leagues is to continue to draw in viewers of other esport's like LoL, Overwatch or CS:GO through the display of these larger orgs. The other side of a 10 team region also builds fandom of teams outside of just someone's home region. What I mean by that is the large group of Japanese fans and North American fans will see a lot more games from teams in other regions. Then if franchising ever brakes into smaller regional areas, like back to East Asia and Asian Pacific, Japanese viewers that liked maybe Bleed for example, will watch more APAC games. Also, committing to just 30 teams allows Riot to give each team way more broadcasting, exposure, and pure funds to make the game bigger.
In all reality, I don't really get why Riot is limiting the teams. This is the best way I could rationalize it. I feel like the EMEA region will depend even more on stealing away more CS:GO fans due to any ill-will from the other regions just getting less showing then EMEA always has. Like, Turkey is EMEA's biggest sub-region, and from what I've heard they're only getting 1 spot. Anyways, I've ran out of words for this post. If you've read this far, thanks. Have a great day.
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