The ULF Esports became the crowned champions of the VALORANT Challengers EMEA Stage 3. Honestly, the reactions are way crazier than anything to watch about gameplay. Indeed, congratulations to them, yet the community is abuzz with something else – this is beyond the victor.
First of all, ULF is Turkish, and this is not the first Turkish team to win this year. Therefore, Turkish teams must be rolling right now, with Eternal Fire crowned as Stage 1 champions of 2025. But that is not really the tea on victory-date: it is more about how few people tuned in-or, shall we say-how few people chose to.
A meme screenshot is doing its rounds in the community, as was expected. The meme shows a Spanish streamer, SergioOfFerra, whom more viewers watched at 12,535 in comparison to the official VALORANT EMEA channel, which got only 12,028. Say what now? The official channel of the event was out-viewed by a solo streamer? Yikes! People have been sharing this meme with such sarcasm to show how badly the official broadcasts are doing, even with the magnificent ULF win stolen from the spotlight: It is a fantastic moment, yet more people are watching that one guy’s stream than the main event. Such a big yikes.
And the replies to the announcement tweet are nothing less than a circus. Some cannot stop raving about Turkish teams taking over the scene, with comments like “Turkish supremacy 😳” or “Do you like Turkish power 🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷,” while the less balanced ones are going with the dissenting side, with one commenter saying, “With a cheater like other says 🙃,” suggesting there may be some controversy or accusations brought up, although you can’t really tell whether that’s just salt or something more serious. Another one reads, “Here before ULF got ban for cheating,” adding to the whole shady saga.
Dirty-side comments in Spanish are coming in about how the game failed as a competition and that everything is about money: “Hace años que habeis fallado en lo que prometia ser el mejor juego competitivo de la década. Solo buscais dinero.” Translation will be: “For years, you have failed in what promised to be the best competitive game of the decade. You only look for money.” Ouch, quite harsh, but gamers get passionate sometimes.
And then, of course, more toxic antics began, with someone comment, “Rstas de Mrd,” probably a misspelled form of “Rest in peace, motherfer” or something along those lines. Very classy. Another says “go sell kebabs,” which is…racist and unneeded, but unfortunately, not at all surprising from parts of the gaming culture.
Amidst the drama, it is also an important occasion for the Turkish scene, and the ULF Esports win marks their second biggest win of Challengers EMEA in this year already, thus a force to reckon with: this one kind of wins may also probably be embarrassing to the official streams; however, this one really spells it out; individual streamers garnering high viewership merely means people are watching-high numbers are there; just not where the organizers want them to be.
This, on some level, illuminates the bigger issue in the esports world: The trend of personality-driven streams taking focus away from these official broadcast productions. It’s not just the game that translates with the talent; it’s the pundits’ commentary charisma, high energy, and communities formed around that, which allows a streamer like SergioOfFerra to take more from his channel than what’s being accomplished on the official one in a championship final.
So yes, ULF Esports are the champions, and they have the win-and that’s good for them. But that’s not the end of the story, as it gets mixed up with viewer drama, accusations, and a heap of stereotypes, or wholesale national pride. That’s pretty much the norm in the gaming scene. Whatever you may think of the situation, it keeps on being interesting. And if you are a VALORANT esports fan, these messy, human-focused narratives sure have the element to keep you engaged, even if at times official numbers are just embarrassingly sore to watch.
