There is a new trend in e-sports: Those who want viewers simply leave out the e-sports athletes and rely on Twitch streamers who play at a high level. In Germany, the streamer team NNO proved this thesis in League of Legends in 2022, while in the USA, Disguised Toast is currently achieving this in the women’s division of Valorant.
This is the situation in Valorant:
- In the USA, the Twitch streamer “Disguised Toast” has opened an e-sports team in Valorant and assembled a roster to shake up the “Game Changer” project: With the project, Riot Games aims to make it easier for women and members of marginalized groups to enter the e-sports scene.
- However, the streamer stated that he didn’t have enough money and time for a “real team,” which is why he did not contract e-sports athletes but Twitch female streamers who play Valorant with ambition.
- For this, he was sharply criticized on Twitter by a woman, stating that women gamers should be given a chance. Bringing Twitch female streamers into the team is like a slap in the face for all female e-sports players in Valorant. His behavior was “disrespectful.”
Disguised Toast reacted quite touched by this criticism. People would be excluded. He only contracted players who are suitable for e-sports. The criticism is not okay.
However, it was already noticeable that he took the criticism seriously and admitted that the team was more about generating attention than winning games and tournaments.
Team of Twitch Female Streamers Causes Viewer Boom at Valorant
This is now the turning point: The team of Twitch female streamers from Disguised Toast is now competing in their first tournament, and indeed the desired result is achieved: The viewership numbers at the tournament have tripled, writes a user:
- Last year, the games peaked at about 8,500 viewers.
- Now there are already 24,000.
- One of the players on the team says that together across all channels they even reached 100,000 viewers.
Thus, Disguised Toast has apparently achieved his goal of drawing more attention to the “Game Changer” project.
In German LoL, a Team of Twitch Streamers Sets Viewer Records
What’s happening with LoL? Here in Germany, we observed the exact same phenomenon among male players in 2022:
- In the second German league of LoL, a team participated that consisted only of Twitch streamers. Among them was NoWay4U, one of the biggest Twitch streamers ever.
- Many in the team were former professionals in LoL, who had ended their professional career in favor of streaming at an advanced age – but they were still good enough for the 2nd league.
- In the end, their matches had many more viewers than the top games of the 1st league. The games of NNO reached 100,000 viewers. The games in the 1st league had around 30,000. Here too, the numbers of the streamers were 3 times larger.
Content Creators Discover a Struggling E-Sport and Generate Much Attention
Why this is so important: Currently, e-sports is struggling. Many teams have to cut their expenses or even close their business entirely.
However, it can be seen that projects led by popular Twitch streamers simultaneously bring in the viewership and attention that e-sports teams so desperately desire.
The successful e-sports teams have known this for a long time and work closely with content creators: Large organizations like FaZe or 100 Thieves specialize in strengthening their brands through content creators on YouTube and Twitch and selling fashion products.
In Germany, YouTuber “HandofBlood” founded his own LoL team. In France and Spain, popular content creators have followed suit.
In all 3 countries, this has breathed new life into the scene and resulted in increased presence on social media.
For the “competitive side” of e-sports, this could be rather negative, but for commercial success, there seems to be no way around content creators.
LoL: E-sports is dying in the USA – 2-time champion allegedly sells team and lays off everyone
