The US site ESPN Esports held a voting tournament to find the top streamer on Twitch among 64 candidates. A total of 2.3 million people voted. The French streamer Gotaga triumphed, defeating stars of the English-speaking Twitch like Shroud and Ninja.
What kind of tournament is this? It is a form of social media tournament. The site ESPN E-Sports announced a competition among 64 streamers chosen by them. They then assigned a specific “ranking” to the streamers and divided them into groups. The ranking aimed to prevent favorites from facing each other in the early rounds.
Now, 2 players face off in a poll on Twitter against each other. The one who receives the most votes proceeds to the next round.
The event took place from March 26 to April 9.
What is it about? The tournament is purely a popularity contest. It is thus best seen as a measure of how popular the respective streamers are and how well they can mobilize their fanbase on Twitter to vote for their favorite.
Many streamers are participating and apparently want to win. They encourage their fanbase to vote for them. It’s about prestige.
How did the streamers perform that we often cover on MeinMMO?
- The 2018 winner was Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. He was also considered a favorite in 2019 and was ranked 1 in his division. However, he was eliminated in a direct comparison with the French streamer Gotaga (only number 7) after previously defeating LoL pro Uzi . Ninja made it to the quarter-finals.
- The mustache streamer DrDisrespect also failed in the quarter-finals against the “Call of Duty” player Scump.
- The shooter pro Shroud managed to defeat wrestling star Xavier Woods or the LoL streamer Tyler1 on his way to the finals, but lost narrowly to Gotaga in the final.
Who won it? The winner of the tournament, which featured almost only English-speaking streamers, is the Frenchman Gotaga. He is a former “Call of Duty” pro.
He defeated Shroud with 56% of a total of 448,000 votes cast.
He is significantly smaller with 1.6 million followers on Twitch compared to Shroud (6.1 million) or Ninja (13.9 million), but seems to have succeeded best in motivating his followers.
So this time the underdog clearly won and showed that there is also a Twitch beyond the English-speaking one.
