Masters at work: how Riot grew Valorant into its second global esport

Published: July 9, 2026

The energy at Valorant Masters London is electric. Everywhere I look, there are people. They're dressed as their favorite Agents - there's many a Jett, Gekko, and Sage. They're wearing their country's flags, draped around them like colorful capes - I see myriad Scottish saltires; a fond reminder of home. Then, there's a guy dressed as The Pope. He's got a Glasgow accent and a flash of ginger hair, and his Pope name is derived from Celtic Football Club founder Brother Walfred, now elevated to Pope status. Masters London is a melting pot of cultures and, apparently, religious leaders: it's an event that transcends 'big videogame convention:' it's the meeting place of a global community.

"The reality is that we host so many of these events across the year, but every time we go to a new city it doesn't get old," Valorant Esports' Head of Product Strategy Bill Pan tells me. "It's awesome being here, and I wish a lot more people on our team could come here and experience the excitement from the fans. That's when you can see the tangible work back at home materialize in real life. It's awesome."

We're sitting in a little pod behind the scenes at The Copper Box Arena, with a crystallized Sage staring down at us. The Copper Box Arena hosts up to 7,500 fans, and Valorant Masters has sold out. It's a far cry from the early days of First Strike, and the inaugural Red Bull Home Ground after that. Pan doesn't know that I've got my Home Ground hoodie back at the hotel: '2021 New Edition' it says on the sleeve. That was five years ago.

Now Valorant esports is a global phenomenon; perhaps second-only to Riot's sister title, League of Legends. Masters London peaked at 9.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched VCT event of all time. That beats out League of Legends Worlds 2025, and Counter-Strike 2's Cologne Major, which was running parallel to VCT London. While 80% of Masters' audience was China-based (likely tuning in to watch EDward Gaming), it's nothing to smirk at.

Pan has been working on Valorant esports for almost four years, and has watched the ecosystem blossom into what it is today. I ask him what that journey's been like, especially given that the game's esports adventures began mid-COVID-19 pandemic.

"Esports, for Valorant, has always been at the core of what the game is supposed to be to some extent," he says. "Now you need the game to be successful for any sort of scale to happen on the esports side, and that's what we really saw. As the game grew over time and the fans showed up, we were able to scale up what kind of shows we could put on, what kind of ecosystem we could build, and what kind of financial incentives we could give back to the pro teams. The growth from back then until now is very much a reflection of both the game and the excitement that fans have shown to us; the want to bring events to cities around the world.

"In the beginning, around First Strike, we were also hitting the [COVID-19] pandemic. We still had to put on an awesome broadcast show, but we really didn't have the scale of fans we wanted until we were able to open it up post-pandemic. By the time we hit Champions Istanbul and LA, that's when we really started seeing the return to what we thought Valorant esports should be, back in the day. Definitely an awesome path from then until now."

It's not easy to build an esports ecosystem these days, however. In 2022, GamesBeat's Jordan Fragen foretold of an "esports winter;" "diversify to survive," she warned. Livestreaming was dropping off post-pandemic; sponsorships were dying; esports was slowly becoming associated with the likes of sports betting and NFTs. It paints a dire picture of the sphere in 2022, just when Valorant was on the rise.

In 2026, some of what she forecast has come to fruition; to the outside eye esports is dying. The likes of the Esports World Cup and its associated Nations Cup are backed by the ever-controversial Saudi Investment Fund, and there's been a recent flood of betting sponsors. In many ways, it feels bleak. I ask Pan how Valorant has continued to be successful, and if Riot has felt the effects of said 'winter.'

"If you think of the first principals of why esports exists in the first place: games are fun, people like games. So as long as there's a games industry out there there's a baseline," he replies. "Within the games industry, there's always going to be a subsegment of players that want to play highly-competitive, team-based sports. That's always going to be intrinsic to human behavior. To marry that together with the fact that games exist, means that I think esports, naturally, will never go [away]. It will always be a really exciting part of the industry."

Esports, naturally, will never go [away]

Bill Pan - Head of Product Strategy, Valorant Esports

"Now your question is a good one; to what scale does that industry exist? We've gone through ebbs and flows. If you think about five years ago, ten years ago, a lot of the industry depended on sponsorship and BD revenue as [its] lifeblood. If you think of the other pro sports, a lot of their lifeblood is broadcast and media rights. Those conditions are different through esports of ten years ago versus pro sports, and I would argue that conditions are different today."

He explains that Riot has attempted to diversify alongside those primary revenue pillars, noting that "digital goods in-game should actually be a bigger piece of how the esports industry really thrives. For Valorant specifically, we spent a lot of time thinking about what the digital goods are offering, and how that can fund the esports industry on our side. That's been the biggest unlock for us. We don't have to rely on external sources to try and break even or [hit] profitability in the way other companies need to.

"We think there's enough value that the esports provides back to the game, both monetarily through skins, but also through awesome events and heightened competition. And when you wrap that all together, I think that's why we still think esports is quite strong. Now that model might not work for everyone, but it certainly has been working well for us."

Riot, however, owns two of the biggest esports in the world with League of Legends and Valorant, and that sets aside the likes of Wild Rift and the competitive sphere for its TCG, Riftbound. It has a lot of experience building these ecosystems, so I ask Pan if League of Legends' esports journey served as both a source of inspiration, but also as somewhat of a success blueprint.

"We're fortunate enough to learn from League, but also other games out there," he says. "We learn a ton from Overwatch, Counter-Strike, and all of these titles that have come before us. The learning comes in a bunch of different ways; but we also learn a lot about what works and doesn't work for fans. The experience that the League of Legends fan wants ten years ago is different from today; the average age has matured over time, the content they like has matured over time, and the delivery mechanisms - shortform content - also change over time.

"[League] has had to adapt to a lot of those changing variables, and for us, we see them making those edits and adjustments, and we now know to focus a lot more on what the cohort of players and fans want. Really, five years ago, our players were young," he laughs. "They were coming from Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite. The way they think about a live esports event and what content means is very different to League of Legends of the same timeframe. Our learnings from League really [revolve around] how they think about audiences more than anything else, in addition to physical production and all of the things we need to do to run an event."

It's an interesting conundrum: a good live-service game ages alongside its playerbase, but how exactly does it do that? As a longtime League of Legends player, I've found the tease of a new rank intriguing, largely because the base player today does know more than a fan of the same level five years ago. That battle for relevance isn't helped by the constant influx of new, 'fast fashion'-esque content; TikTok, Instagram, YouTube - they're ruthless battle royale-style platforms where everyone is vying for a mere two seconds of your attention.

I ask how Pan and the team hope to maintain that relevance; how do you grab that invaluable two seconds of time? How do you hold that interest for ten seconds, or a minute? "It's challenging," he laments. "If you think about five years ago, we had a really solid understanding of who our audience was, and as they've changed over the last five years, it's not enough to just try to have a good understanding of where they are now. We also have to understand, who are the new audiences today, and how are they different? It's almost like there's more work today than ever to try and have a better understanding of our players.

"This is on top of the entertainment industry changing; what's hot right now versus before aren't the same. Then that's on top of distribution channels changing. It's an incredibly difficult job to work out how to best serve our audiences. What we're trying to do is take a lot of shots in a lot of different directions and basically let the fans come to us in the different vectors we're trying to build."

He mentions the likes of new approaches to shortform content and esports highlight packages - "who has time to sit through hundreds of games a year for any sport?" he says with a laugh. "Even for the most die-hard soccer fan it's impossible to sit through every game. Those are the things we're going to continue to push our bounds on. This is an ongoing battle; this won't end. We're very focused on continuing to innovate."

As Pan and I talk, there are waves of applause from the main hall. There's electricity and excitement; genuine hype. We laugh as I nudge my microphone closer to him. "It's getting so loud," I say, vaguely panicked that the interview wouldn't record correctly. He smiles.

That ebb and flow of cheering perfectly encapsulates the excitement of live esports - the highs and the lows of watching your team either thrive, or fall at the final hurdle. It's an excitement that Riot events just understand: whether it's League of Legends Worlds, MSI, or VCT Masters London, it just gets it. I'm excited to see Valorant thrive; I've been intertwined with its esports sphere since the beginning; I've grown with it, instead of joining later on as I did with League. I'm excited to see what happens next; excited to see what happens at Champions Shanghai. Just give me a Paper Rex win, then it'll all be sunshine, rainbows, and gunfire.