Riot Games has announced that Valorant Champions 2023 will take place in Los Angeles, marking the first time that an international event will be held in North America.
The VCT event will take place between August 6-26 across two iconic locations in Los Angeles, with the early rounds being held at the Shrine Auditorium and the final rounds, featuring the last four teams, at the Kia Forum.
The announcement was made during the broadcast of the final day of VCT LOCK//IN, right after the reveal of Valorant’s newest Agent, Gekko, an initiator based in Los Angeles.
Valorant Champions 2023 will be the first international Valorant event held in North America. It will feature 16 teams from North America, Brazil, Latin America, EMEA, and Asia, with the allocation of slots per region unclear at this time.
This is where champions are made.VALORANT Champions 2023 is coming to Los Angeles in August. It all starts at the Shrine Expo Hall and ends at the Kia Forum. Get the details with Anna and Leo. pic.twitter.com/YhCOrboRnc
— VALORANT (@VALORANT) March 4, 2023
The choice of Los Angeles as the host city of Valorant Champions 2023 comes with little surprise, given the game’s growing popularity in North America. LA is also hosting the VCT Americas League, which will kick off on March 26, and Riot Games’ headquarters are located in this Southern California city.
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“We were finally in a position where we could host an event in LA,” Anna Donlon, Senior Vice President & Studio Head of Valorant, said.
“With Riot’s headquarters being in LA and a lot of us being from LA, we were really excited to bring an event there.”
Valorant Champions 2022 took place in Istanbul and saw LOUD win the title after beating OpTic Gaming in the grand final. The tournament had over 1.5 million concurrent viewers, which remains Valorant’s highest peak viewership, according to Esports Charts.