VALORANT Game Changers is one of the first fully-supported, safe, and inclusive ecosystems for women within esports. It’s designed to uplift and accelerate the representation of women by providing access to competitions and educational opportunities taught by veterans of the industry.

The VALORANT Game Changers Championship tournament is the tentpole event of this program. With its campaign, we sought to create a must-watch moment that would boost the recognition, fandom, and viewership of skilled women athletes and teams.

Our objectives included establishing the athletes as fierce contenders while growing VALORANT’s audience via engaging and player-focused content. Most importantly, we wanted to showcase the stories of players and have the audience see these pros as fearless role models who they could aspire to be.

Campaign creative centered on a second insight: that in order to be a Game Changer, to break through barriers and glass ceilings, players must be fearless. They must be unrelenting in their preparation and competition, and all in the face of mounting expectations and pressure to make “plays,” VALORANT shorthand for saving the day.

The campaign tagline, “Seize The Play,” called on pros to take control of the moment and showcase their greatness—this was their day; these were their plays.

We offset it creatively with video-centric content that would humanize and valorize these pros in the channels their aspiring fans love most. We released short-form content letting the athletes (and their skills) speak for themselves, as well as long-form content that aimed to deepen emotional connection through authentic storytelling, knowing that the pros’ personality and fearlessness would do the rest. That they would be heard and seen like never before.

We knew increasing visibility for women athletes was key, but asking what type of visibility led to a game-changing insight: women were being seen and defined in relation to the men on top gaming teams. To break through decades of inequality, we had to invest in visibility for women alongside and in relation to… other women.

Not only would it help balance coverage, it would help dispel the idea that women were less skilled and less worth watching than their male counterparts—an idea that perpetuated itself in the community due to a lack of representation leading to a lack of interest among young girls to play.

This insight led us to create the women-only Game Changers league and build a following for its pro players over the course of 28 qualifying tournaments, culminating in a player-centric, personality-fueled Championship featuring new heroes on center stage.

The first-ever Game Changers Championship set the record for the most watched women’s tournament in the history of gaming, aggregating over 5.2 million total hours and seeing more than 230,000 concurrent viewers tune in for the finals.

We had 32% more engagements per social post than Champions—the biggest VALORANT esports event of the year—showing the depth of connection that Game Changers pros are poised to drive.

We earned 54.4M impressions and 2.5M engagements in VALORANT’s owned content surrounding the Championship, further displaying the interest and excitement from the audience. Across social channels, we saw an impressive average engagement rate, most notably on TikTok (12.3%) and Instagram (17.2%).

The Game Changers Championship had the highest average viewers per minute for a Game Changers tournament, with audiences nearly 10x the size of a typical broadcast.