A Twitch star signs for a rival platform with a contract like Messi’s

His name is Félix Lengyel, although in the networks he is known as xQc. He is 27 years old, he is Canadian and he just signed with Kick, a rival streaming platform of Twitch, for 70 million dollars for two years. The contract includes another 30 million in incentives, which places him above what Messi, Cristiano or LeBron will receive from his teams. “This is more than most professional athletes and megastars,” his representative boasted after disclosing the details of the agreement.

“It is one of the highest agreements in the entire entertainment world, period,” insisted the agent. The contract does not require exclusivity from Lengyel, so he will be able to continue broadcasting on Twitch, where he is one of the most popular figures, with 11.8 million followers.

Kick launched in December 2022 and, like Twitch, it focuses on gaming and live streaming. Its creators are two of the founders of the online casino Stake.com. Visually it is almost a copy of the Amazon platform and its strategy to steal a share of the market is to improve the remuneration of the streamers and allow most of the content that it prohibits, such as the promotion of gambling or erotic content.

These much laxer moderation rules fit well with the profile of Lengyel, whose Twitch account has been banned several times for violating the platform’s rules for his offensive language. The Canadian was also one of the stars of the platform that regularly broadcast his bets and games of chance before Twitch banned them completely at the end of last year. One of his channel suspensions was precisely for breaking this ban.

Lengyel started his career as a professional esports player at the age of 19. He was a member of several of the top teams, but his popularity exploded when he left professional competition and began doing solo broadcasts with a theme that mixes video games with commentary on current events and direct interaction with his followers. . He ranks fifth in number of followers on Twitch, but second among English-speakers.

He streamer Canadian is characterized by the non-stop broadcasts carried out by many of the platform’s stars. It broadcasts live an average of eight hours a day, every day of the week, according to the TwitchTracker portal. It has an average of 56,000 viewers and currently has 15,000 paying subscribers.

His arrival on Kick has exploded the popularity of the platform, which has announced that it had more than a million new registrations in the 24 hours of the xQc announcement and multiplied by 50 its usual traffic. Will it be enough for his signing to be profitable for the platform? “Signing a talent with millions of followers ensures massive user growth, which you can hardly reach with advertising or public relations campaigns,” Fabienne Fourquet, executive director of 2btube, an agency that represents more than than 500 influencers from different platforms around the world.

The expert also points out that this type of movement has an advertising reading. “These kinds of signings are an excellent marketing campaign to get people talking about this new platform. You have to keep in mind that it is not easy to gain a foothold in a sector where there are already leading platforms with millions of users and content creators, and this type of advertisement is very striking”.

It seems that Kick will announce more signings of this type. This same weekend has also confirmed that the streamer Kaitlyn Michelle Siragusa, better known as Amouranth, joins her platform. Siragusa rose to fame by directing her in a bikini or underwear in inflatable pools or jacuzzis, which became a booming style on Twitch until Amazon decided to ban this type of content.

Contract figures for Amouranth, who has 6.3 million followers on Twitch, have not been made public. However, his signing could become as representative as Lengyel’s, since with them Kick manages to get hold of two of the main figures that represent communities of viewers who are looking for content that is not legal on Twitch.

higher pay

Kick has made giving back to its creators one of its hallmarks. Its first measure in this regard has been to set a commission of 5% of the paid subscriptions generated by the streamerswhich is 10 times less than what Twitch takes.

The platform has come to filter that it plans to pay by the hour to the streamers, instead of by audience generated as the rest of the sector does. His plan, which he has not yet confirmed that he will launch, would be to compensate all content creators with $16 an hour regardless of their followers. This would be equivalent to 2,560 gross dollars per month (2,344 euros) for a 40-hour work week.

Kick’s strategy is based on taking advantage of the discontent of many small creators with Twitch. The Amazon platform has been tightening the requirements to monetize content and its commission in an attempt to increase its benefits. The situation is similar to the one that Twitch itself took advantage of to attract youtubers to its platform at the beginning of its journey.

“When a platform takes its first steps, it has to make a large investment to attract content creators and users. This implies offering better profitability than other platforms”, Fourquet details: “However, over the years, the business model changes, there are regulations that have to come into force to ensure that advertisers, who are the largest source of income from these platforms, decide to invest in it. And with each change in regulations there are always creators who are harmed, hence the discomfort”.

“We cannot forget that content creators only look after themselves, their views and their income. If these metrics change, their life model is threatened, having to look for alternatives”, he recalls.

Main streamers Spaniards have reacted to the commotion caused by Kick’s latest movements. Ibai Llanos has stated that he has recently renewed his contract with Twitch, so he is not in a position to change platforms. The streamer has also explained that the figures of a possible movement would not reach those of xQc because he targets the Hispanic community, which generates less benefits than the English-speaking one: “They will never pay me even 10% of what What are they going to pay this man?

In Llanos’ opinion, this situation makes it unlikely that there will be a leak of streamers Spaniards to the new platform. “The only one who can take that path is Auronplay,” he opined. “It’s crazy. I don’t know who negotiated this contract, but he’s absolutely crazy. What if I would? For a hundred million? Man, of course”, the latter reacted: “But [lo harían] all. And whoever says he doesn’t is probably lying to you.