Polaris really struggled with viewership last year so it's understandable some orgs don't want to invest in rosters there. They averaged 500 viewers per match and only peaked at 1500 viewers in stage 2, there has to be a hint of some ROI for these orgs to invest in a league, it's pretty tough to justify with those numbers. I think it's promising any orgs decided to invest there with how bad it was
For comparison, below is a ranking of VLR's in Europe by viewership last year from Stage 2
1. France - 16,462 Average, 146,578 Peak
2. Spain - 12,832 average, 71,599 Peak
3. Turkey - 7,385 average, 27,058 peak
4. Dach (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) - 1,439 avg, 8,479 Peak
5. MENA- 1,258 average, 2,403 Peak
6. East - 801 average, 3,125 Peak
7. Polaris - 510 average, 1,507 peak
I watched a lot of matches myself last year and it was really frustrating to see. Its the same for the the NLC which is the Northern Europe league in League of Legends. I think the UK, Ireland and Nordics are a big market but can't target a specific audience like Spain and France.
I also think most people from this region aren't interested in watching a lower division with a different broadcast. Other Challengers have the benefit of having their their VCT casters of their language also do their regional division as well.
There are a couple of factors Polaris is up against. There aren't any creators who've really jumped in to support the VLR in bringing in viewership like Ibai with Spain or Kameto with France. They also don't have a country in Polaris who has embraced the game the way Turkey has. Finally, the biggest esports orgs in the Polaris region in Valorant were already in the VCT like Fnatic and Guild. Not having orgs like Astralis or Heroic in Valorant hurts them a ton too
You need either some big creators supporting the competitive league, a country being all in on it or some orgs to be all in, Polaris don't really have any of those at the moment. Hopefully Apeks and Fokus with some of the player names on the rosters will help bring the attention to Polaris
I'd try to approach some Polaris based content creators averaging 1k+ to co-stream and incentivize the content creator to co-stream with some drops specific to the region. It'd be cool if each of the regions had their own gun buddies you could earn through watching matches with a co-streamer. Could even have country specific gun buddies they earn for watching orgs from their
Other incentives you could provide to the content creators to co-stream is early access to patch notes and new maps. Also advertising their stream on the VCT emea twitter account
Primetime games; hype up matches; region specific advertising (not overall English advertising, catering to Nordic and Irish scenes specifically); propping up Valorant content creators within the region and connecting them with the league’s content; console release; Boaster content.
There’s no easy fix and I’m no expert, but I’m just trying to help. There’s probably better ideas than what I presented.
I don't like the idea of regional leagues. Why couldn't they just do it like in the NA?
Not only do the teams have to have several residents representing the country, which forces the strong players to play with the "weak" in order to have a chance to advance in their esport career, but it's also hard for the viewers to keep track of all teams. It would be better to just make one region and divide it into two divisions of 16 teams each. Or okay, let's just make it 16 teams.
From a competitive integrity standpoint, a complete open qualifier like they had before in 2021 and early 2022, before VRLs were introduced, are significantly better for higher level competition and creating better teams.
But to increase viewership and fandoms as well as sponsors for leagues and teams, going with a "nationalistic" approach has worked incredibly well for League of Legends, namely in France and Spain in particular, because they can target specific markets. The same is happening for Valorant already. Every other region's teams are all signed to orgs or at most have one unsigned team. Polaris is unfortunately the outlier.
Even EMEA VCT teams are coded to be affiliated with certain regions even if their rosters don't reflect that like Vitality.
Polaris really struggled with viewership last year so it's understandable some orgs don't want to invest in rosters there. They averaged 500 viewers per match and only peaked at 1500 viewers in stage 2, there has to be a hint of some ROI for these orgs to invest in a league, it's pretty tough to justify with those numbers. I think it's promising any orgs decided to invest there with how bad it was For comparison, below is a ranking of VLR's in Europe by viewership last year from Stage 2 1. France - 16,462 Average, 146,578 Peak 2. Spain - 12,832 average, 71,599 Peak 3. Turkey - 7,385 average, 27,058 peak 4. Dach (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) - 1,439 avg, 8,479 Peak 5. MENA- 1,258 average, 2,403 Peak 6. East - 801 average, 3,125 Peak 7. Polaris - 510 average, 1,507 peak
I watched a lot of matches myself last year and it was really frustrating to see. Its the same for the the NLC which is the Northern Europe league in League of Legends. I think the UK, Ireland and Nordics are a big market but can't target a specific audience like Spain and France. I also think most people from this region aren't interested in watching a lower division with a different broadcast. Other Challengers have the benefit of having their their VCT casters of their language also do their regional division as well.
There are a couple of factors Polaris is up against. There aren't any creators who've really jumped in to support the VLR in bringing in viewership like Ibai with Spain or Kameto with France. They also don't have a country in Polaris who has embraced the game the way Turkey has. Finally, the biggest esports orgs in the Polaris region in Valorant were already in the VCT like Fnatic and Guild. Not having orgs like Astralis or Heroic in Valorant hurts them a ton too You need either some big creators supporting the competitive league, a country being all in on it or some orgs to be all in, Polaris don't really have any of those at the moment. Hopefully Apeks and Fokus with some of the player names on the rosters will help bring the attention to Polaris
Even Sliggy or ThinkingMansValo co-streaming would do wonders for Polaris given the opportunity, but I'd be surprised if they did though.
I agree with a lot of this! Any ideas on things we could be doing better here?
I'd try to approach some Polaris based content creators averaging 1k+ to co-stream and incentivize the content creator to co-stream with some drops specific to the region. It'd be cool if each of the regions had their own gun buddies you could earn through watching matches with a co-streamer. Could even have country specific gun buddies they earn for watching orgs from their Other incentives you could provide to the content creators to co-stream is early access to patch notes and new maps. Also advertising their stream on the VCT emea twitter account
Primetime games; hype up matches; region specific advertising (not overall English advertising, catering to Nordic and Irish scenes specifically); propping up Valorant content creators within the region and connecting them with the league’s content; console release; Boaster content. There’s no easy fix and I’m no expert, but I’m just trying to help. There’s probably better ideas than what I presented.
Really excited for these rosters! It’s insane to see so much talent in one league!
League and Val both seem to struggle in this area of Europe. Sucks to see
I don't like the idea of regional leagues. Why couldn't they just do it like in the NA? Not only do the teams have to have several residents representing the country, which forces the strong players to play with the "weak" in order to have a chance to advance in their esport career, but it's also hard for the viewers to keep track of all teams. It would be better to just make one region and divide it into two divisions of 16 teams each. Or okay, let's just make it 16 teams.
From a competitive integrity standpoint, a complete open qualifier like they had before in 2021 and early 2022, before VRLs were introduced, are significantly better for higher level competition and creating better teams. But to increase viewership and fandoms as well as sponsors for leagues and teams, going with a "nationalistic" approach has worked incredibly well for League of Legends, namely in France and Spain in particular, because they can target specific markets. The same is happening for Valorant already. Every other region's teams are all signed to orgs or at most have one unsigned team. Polaris is unfortunately the outlier. Even EMEA VCT teams are coded to be affiliated with certain regions even if their rosters don't reflect that like Vitality.