Riot officially unveiled the Partner Teams for Valorant’s 2027 & 2028 Circuit on Thursday morning, confirming the 32 teams that will benefit from Partner Status after the orgs themselves announced their participation.
The announcement also came with a clarification of the selection process, as Riot outlined its internal criteria. Fallout over the choices of partnered teams continues to play out as Valorant prepares for its first open qualifiers of its new circuit, the VCT 2027 Kickoff Open Qualifiers.
The discourse went viral over the last few days after notable streamer and Shopify Rebellion co-owner Ludwig Ahgren questioned the org’s continued participation in the Valorant esports space.
Riot Games provides framework for partnership decision
Considering the continued discourse over the effect of the 2027 structure on the scene, Riot Games provided their rationale for who made the cut and who missed out on Valorant partnership in 2027 & 2028, providing a five-point framework to succinctly summarize their main considerations.
Riot shared:
“To select our partners, we operated a comprehensive selection process that saw more than 100 teams from around the world submit their interest. This effort began earlier this year, with teams sharing proposals of what they could bring to the VCT and the wider VALORANT community. A smaller group of finalists were interviewed by global and regional esports leads to better understand what they aspired to bring to the VCT. At a high level the selection criteria focused on five key criteria:
- Commitment to Grow the VALORANT Community
- Community Resonance across Fandom and Content
- Business Sustainability and Responsible Operations
- Operational Excellence and Established Infrastructure
- Competitive Success and Performance Development”
Despite being part of the criteria, Riot was quick to emphasize that historic performance was not the only metric being measured by their selection process. Amongst the teams to be denied were Nongshim RedForce and Global Esports. Nongshim had won VCT Pacific Kickoff and Valorant Masters Santiago in 2026, with Global Esports winning the final split of the year with a VCT Pacific Stage 2 victory.
Instead, Riot put special emphasis on the fanbases that teams could drive, sharing:
“Our goal was to identify organizations that bring something unique to the VCT, whether that’s a passionate local fanbase, a distinct identity, a history of competitive excellence, or a demonstrated ability to build resonant experiences for the VALORANT community. While competitive results were an important part of our evaluation, we placed particular emphasis on organizations that could help us build fandom and community resonance for years to come.”
The statement can explain certain aspects of the specific teams that were chosen, with a clear priority of not limiting partnership to one region or sub-region and proliferating the Valorant fandom across geographical areas. However, ultimately, the public will never be aware of the hundreds of pages of documentation generated during the application process and the concerns raised at various stages of the process.
So Riot Games has given a glimpse of the decision-making process, but the public may never fully be satisfied with one team being chosen over another, or their favorite org missing out.
And the discourse is set to rumble on still, with orgs like GIANTX still yet to confirm whether they will continue in the Valorant esports space. As always, Insider Gaming will keep you informed of their decision when they make it.
Do you agree with Riot’s decision-making? Share your thoughts with us on the Insider Gaming Discord.
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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