Elias “eliasn97” Nerlich (24) is currently the biggest streamer on Twitch, founder and co-owner of the e-sports team FOKUS CLAN, and also successful on YouTube. MeinMMO presents the content creator.
It started like this: eliasn97 wanted to become a “football professional like everyone else,” according to his own statements. He had played football his whole life, but never made it to a professional career. Additionally, he sustained a serious leg injury during football training that required two surgeries – this led him to FIFA 17. From then on, his love for the game developed.
In August 2018, he was recruited by the football club Hertha BSC for the e-sports team for FIFA 19. Nerlich was discovered at the FUT Champions Cup in Barcelona, where he was among the best 64 players from November 2017.
On September 7, 2018, the then 20-year-old Nerlich introduced himself to his YouTube community in a high-quality trailer, although he stated that he was not doing it of his own accord, but because Hertha BSC insisted. Initially, his YouTube channel was supposed to focus solely on FIFA.
eliasn97 on his work and how he achieved success
While he was active as an e-sports player, he also ran his YouTube and Twitch channel. Nerlich said he sometimes recorded until 5 AM, edited the video until 8 AM, and then had to go to appointments. It was important for him not to be negligent.
His YouTube channel was initially the only place where he streamed and uploaded videos, alongside platforms like Twitter and Instagram. He built a following of about 200,000 subscribers before deciding in April 2020 to also stream on Twitch.
He pursued his career as an e-sports player, was active on Twitch, YouTube, and all other social media channels, such as TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.
How did he succeed on YouTube? On the one hand, consistency and engagement from eliasn97 helped. On the other hand, his personality, openness, and his contact with well-known personalities and the resulting interesting videos.
Nerlich was known in his community not to be the calmest FIFA player and would often get loudly frustrated when things didn’t go as he had hoped.
Additionally, he had close contact with professional football players, like his best friend Sidney Friede. Together, they produced various videos in which they talked about life as a professional, opened FIFA packs, or simply played for PSN cards.
He also actively interacted with his community by streaming himself opening his viewers’ FIFA rewards. This ran as a series on his YouTube channel for an extended period.
In August 2020, he started posting videos about tournaments of Fall Guys and Mario Kart, hosted by Twitch streamers Trymacs and MontanaBlack, but it still mainly revolved around FIFA.
How much did eliasn97 earn? According to his own statements, the 24-year-old earned at least 10,000 euros a month in 2020. His best earnings were 45,000 euros in a month. Both amounts were gross and accounted for both his e-sports career as well as his earnings from Twitch and YouTube.
The path to becoming the most successful Twitch streamer in Germany
How did he start on Twitch? By building a solid following on YouTube, he launched in April 2020 directly with around 3,100 average viewers on Twitch. However, he offered less FIFA there and focused more on Just Chatting streams where he interacted with his audience.
Since then, his numbers have consistently increased. Although he dropped in June 2021 regarding his average viewers, there were still close to 15,000. Moreover, he quickly recovered from that in the following months.
There was a rapid increase in his viewership especially from October 2020 to January 2021. During this time, he primarily streamed the Steam hit Among Us and FIFA 21, which released in October. He also mentioned that the COVID-19 period helped his streams.
Moreover, the frequency of his streams increased during that period. He streamed only 7 days in October and 15 days in January. He expanded this until he was streaming almost daily.
He frequently collaborated with other well-known streamers like MontanaBlack, Trymacs, or his FIFA buddies.
This is Twitch streamer and YouTuber eliasn97 in 2022
How does it look on Twitch? Currently, he reaches about 27,500 viewers on average with his live broadcasts, placing him ahead of the formerly biggest streamer in Germany, and now he is number 1 on Twitch. Recently, Nerlich celebrated 1 million followers on the platform.
How does it look on YouTube? It’s going similarly well. At the moment, Nerlich has 825,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel and garners between 7.8 and 10.1 million video views monthly.
There, it’s not just FIFA anymore, but also Valorant, Fortnite, or other games together with other content creators.
eliasn97 turns his back on FIFA
Why is there hardly any FIFA on YouTube anymore? eliasn97 talked in a longer video about how he only wants to play Career Mode and Squad Builder Battle, but nothing else. He said, ‘EA isn’t doing anything anyway – the game is completely messed up.’ The streamer expressed his frustration over the poor pulls from packs, stating that it wasn’t like that in the past.
In FIFA Ultimate Team, there is also the Weekend League, which Nerlich claimed had dramatically declined and is no longer fun for him. The Weekend League is the arena in FIFA Ultimate Team where the best of the best compete against each other with custom-built teams.
For more details and background on his exit, you can watch his video:
What about e-sports? Since August 2021, eliasn97 is no longer an e-sports player at Hertha BSC and founded his own team – the FOKUS CLAN. Together with Dennis Andreas Nirtl and Martin Wyss, he leads the e-sports team. So far, they have often placed successfully between rank 9 and 16 in FIFA tournaments.
And also in Valorant, things are looking good so far. Within 90 days, the FOKUS Valorant team qualified for the highest league in Europe (via Twitter).
How much does eliasn97 earn nowadays? Besides Twitch, his team, YouTube, and more, the streamer also owns a fashion brand together with his friend Sidney Friede, which also seems to generate decent revenue. He mentioned that after nearly a year in business, they earned about 10 million euros.
Although Nerlich didn’t disclose how much he earns from the rest, he stated in a January 2022 interview that he “probably never needs to work again.”
Not with FIFA, but the streamer Trymacs was also involved with football: Twitch streamer feels the full wrath of hardcore football fans: ‘I’ve never divided people so much’
