The most-watched team in VCT Americas might not make it to the playoffs

Amidst a tough start to the season in which they let go of their coach and called upon a substitute to fill in for their major star player, Sentinels are still setting the viewership standard and are the most-watched VALORANT team across all of VCT so far in 2023.

Of the most watched matches across VCT Americas so far, and in fact, across all three international VCT leagues, all three of the top three were Sentinels matches, according to Esports Charts. Their most recent matchup against LOUD, which saw Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen make his Sentinels debut in place of the resting Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, cracked 500,000 viewers, with almost half coming from the Brazilian/Portuguese streams.

The Sentinels vs. LOUD match was one of great interest to Brazil, as reigning world champions Gustavo “Sacy” Rossi and Bryan “pANcada” Luna took on their former teammates on LOUD for the first time ever. Between the debut of Marved, the meeting between former LOUD champions, and all the attention surrounding the dramatic start to the season for Sentinels, this match was sure to attract the audience, and it ended up a captivating series that went the distance.

Sentinels did end up taking another loss, though, falling to a 1-3 record in the middle of the VCT Americas super week. The schedule does ease up a little for them from this point onwards, taking on the likes of MIBR, Cloud9, Evil Geniuses, and currently winless KRÜ over the next four matches. If they want to make playoffs, they’ll need to crack the top six, which will require them to win out from now on and get some help from other teams along the way.

Hype and watchful eyes around Sentinels manifested at the very start of the season, as the opening match of VCT Americas between them and 100 Thieves set the high bar early with over 400K viewers, which wasn’t surpassed until the previously mentioned LOUD vs. Sentinels match. Third amongst VCT Americas matches in viewership is Sentinels’ week three match versus Leviatán.

That said, it’s not just Sentinels propping up VCT Americas all on their own. All five of the most-watched VCT Americas matches (the three Sentinels matches above plus LOUD vs. Cloud9 and LOUD vs. MIBR) recorded higher peak viewership than the most-viewed matches in VCT EMEA (BBL vs. Karmine Corp) and VCT Pacific (ZETA DIVISION vs. Global Esports).

As always with VALORANT viewership, especially in the Americas region, the cap has to be tipped towards co-streaming, particularly big names like Tarik that attract thousands to their co-streams, sometimes even surpassing the concurrent viewership of the main broadcast itself.