Since Ninja joined Microsoft’s Mixer in 2019, there have been deals worth several million US dollars for successful gaming streamers like Courage, TimTheTatman, DrLupo, Valkyrae, and others. German streamers like MontanaBlack also speculated on a rain of money with a potential switch. YouTube, in particular, frequently snatched stars away from Twitch for a lot of money. This is supposed to come to an end, according to a report from the business magazine Bloomberg.
When did the million deals start?
Similar to professional football, a kind of “bidding war” for superstars began, who had built a large audience on Twitch. This started about 4 years ago:
- In 2019, Microsoft signed the Twitch stars Ninja and shroud for its platform Mixer for unheard-of sums: It was said to be “up to $40 million for 3 to 5 years.”
- Between 2020 and 2022, YouTube repeatedly lured “family-friendly streamers” away from Twitch and paid them “life-changing” sums: YouTube signed fan favorites like TimTheTatman, Ludwig, and Valkyrae.
- Since 2023, Kick is reportedly paying even higher millions for rather “difficult Twitch streamers” like xQc or Amouranth. However, Kick does not sign these streamers exclusively, but allows them to continue operating their huge Twitch channels. xQc is said to be getting $100 million for his work on Kick.
There are also rumors in Germany that big changes are coming to the streamer market and that some high-profile streamers will switch. Behind the scenes, things are reportedly crazy, noted German top streamer Reved.
Bad news for streamers came at TwitchCon in Vegas
This is changing now: The new CEO of Twitch, Dan Clancy, stated in an interview with Bloomberg that the “bidding war” between Twitch and YouTube for top talent is not a business model that can be sustained. He gave the interview to Bloomberg on the sidelines of TwitchCon in Las Vegas.
The CEO of Twitch says that until now, Twitch has tried to keep up with the offers from other companies. This will now be significantly reduced. They will now finalize standard deals with streamers and will only make exceptions for a “very small number of talents.”
Twitch recently announced at TwitchCon that its streamers can now also stream their content simultaneously on all platforms, such as YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
YouTube and Twitch want to significantly lower million deals
What about YouTube? YouTube also wants to withdraw from million deals, reports Bloomberg, referencing anonymous sources: YouTube is reducing the size of deals with gaming livestreamers and also shortening the length of contracts.
In contrast to Twitch’s statement, which comes directly from the CEO, Bloomberg could not get this statement confirmed by YouTube officially.
Where might there still be money? The major new player that neither YouTube nor Twitch really wants to talk about is the platform Kick, which is closely tied to the online casino Stake.
Kick has spent a lot of money in recent months on deals to lure streamers from Twitch to them. Recently, they secured the services of Nickmercs.
Twitch and YouTube apparently do not want to participate in a bidding war for exclusivity rights anymore. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense for Kick to buy people out of exclusivity deals if these exclusivity deals no longer exist, but (almost) everyone only has a standard contract now.
Advertising deals as a trump card for Twitch and YouTube
This is what it’s all about: YouTube and Twitch have apparently realized that they are losing too much money in a bidding war and ultimately only driving up the market value of streamers who naturally exploit this.
The economic advantage for both sides against Kick is that Twitch and YouTube are considered reputable and offer streamers on these platforms the opportunity to earn a lot of money through advertising deals, so-called “placements,” with companies.
The platforms are presumably banking on attractive advertising conditions keeping the streamers on their platforms and that they do not have to diminish their own profits through exorbitant exclusivity deals.
How important individual streamers are for the growth and relevance of a streaming site is questionable anyway: In 2019, Mixer lured two top stars away from Twitch for a lot of money, yet the service remained irrelevant and had to close in 2020.
Now Kick has also bought reach with xQc and Amouranth, but not necessarily increasing relevance. While the relevance of streamers leaving Twitch seems to be shrinking, the streaming service they switch to does not necessarily become more relevant.
The German Twitch streamer MontanaBlack has repeatedly toyed with the idea of leaving Twitch in the past, speculating that competing streaming providers would compete for him. So those dreams might have to come to an end:
MontanaBlack cancels Twitch contract – Wants to know, ‘who loves him the most’
