Riot set to introduce Valorant team-branded skins

The Valorant Esports Global Head, Leo Faria, revealed in a recent interview about Mastercard extending its esports sponsorship into Valorant that team-branded skins are coming to the game next year.

Riot Games revealed that partnered teams in its VCT leagues will be able to put team-branded skins into Valorant in early 2023. In a recent interview with the Sports Business Journal, Faria let slip that these team-branded skins are set to come in 2024.

The interview centered on Mastercard’s recent extension of its sponsorship with Riot Games esports into Valorant. But Faria also talked about Valorant’s business model with microtransactions and how it folds into Riot’s esports offerings.

“Next year, we’re introducing for the first time team-branded skins in-game and all of that is monetized via microtransactions,” Faria told SBJ. “It’s a big part of the business.”

Esports team-branded skins coming to Valorant in 2024

Valorant teams have been able to get revenue from in-game item sales previously through attending Valorant Champions. Over the past two world championships, Riot Games have split the revenue from Valorant Champions in-game item bundles with teams that qualified for the tournament.

With the switch to a partnered league system in 2023, teams that were chosen for partnership will receive more monetary support from the developer. This is through a yearly stipend, in-game item sales from esports events like Valorant Champions, and recently VCT LOCK//IN, as well as team-branded content.

So far in 2023, no team-branded content has hit the Valorant storefront for fans to purchase and there was no announced timeline for when these in-game items would come.

Now, fans have a rough idea of when to expect their favorite team to have a gun or knife skin available for purchase in the Riot Games title.