For years, livestreaming platforms have offered lucrative six to seven-digit offers to sign big talents. For the past three years, Twitch and its competitor YouTube have been scouting top talents to boost their platform’s reach and increase their revenue. However, according to Twitch CEO Dan Clancy during TwitchCon Las Vegas, the bidding wars to get exclusive deals with top streamers is not “a sustainable business.”
YouTube is also backing out of lucrative deals
The “bidding war” of the two companies did not only involve acquiring creators but also streaming live events. Twitch was able to stream 2020 NBA events. Twitch, on the other hand, had an exclusive deal with Overwatch League.
However, times are changing. Two people who have internal knowledge of the strategy at YouTube said that the company is also moving away from signing multi-dollar deals with creators. While Twitch used to match other companies when it comes to offers, It seems like the platform is going to lessen the deals it’s going to offer in the future.
Future of creators in Twitch
For the creators with existing custom deals with Twitch, Clancy said they plan on “reducing that significantly.” This means that only a few talent in the platform is exempted from the standard terms the company is going to offer other creators. Last August, the company announced that creators are not allowed to simulcast to other platforms aside from mobile apps. But Twitch recently announced that creators can now multi-stream to YouTube and Kick.
Would Kick follow this move?
YouTube and Twitch are not the only companies bidding for creators. Kick, a newly launched livestreaming platform, was also able to sign top creators like xQC, Hikaru Nakamura and others. However, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to follow YouTube and Twitch any time soon.