Kick has wrested Twitch’s most-watched content creator, Felix Lengyel, by offering him a contract befitting a soccer star en route to Saudi Arabia: $100 million for two years. Known as xQc, he is the first video game streamer to have a payroll on a par with the world’s highest-paid athletes like Messi. Well, not exactly. He will receive more than double what La Pulga will receive with Inter Miami (40 million euros).
The xQc representative explained that Twitch’s rival platform paid $70 million for two years for live broadcasts, and $30 million more as incentives. “This is more than most professional athletes and megastars,” he stressed. “It’s one of the highest deals in all of show business, period,” he emphasized.
In addition, it should be noted that the Lengyel contract does not require exclusivity. In other words, despite having signed for Kick, he will be able to continue broadcasting live on Twitch, where he has 11.8 million followers. And there are still more. xQc stated in one of his latest streams that the platform had offered him a percentage of the company, but did not reveal whether or not he accepted the proposal.
Certainly the xQc contract stands out for the amount he will receive, which is higher than that of great athletes. Without taking into account the total income and reviewing only what they receive from their teams, the basketball player Kevin Durant earns 44 million euros; one less than the also star of the NBA LeBron James, and two less than the Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo.
His contract is up to the level of the boxer Canelo Álvarez, and the PSG player Kylian Mbappé, since both earn 100 million euros. Instead, he is slightly below golfers Dustin Johnson (€102M), and Phil Mickelson (€104M).
Since Twitch applied restrictive policies at the content level and changed the advertising policy, the number of subscribers and streamers have decreased. Specifically, the change that upset content creators was the removal of the 70-30 split, which was a monetization element for the big names on the platform.
Because of these changes, and taking into account that Kick does allow you to promote bets or erotic content, among others, many content creators have already considered migrating to this new tool created by the online gaming giant, Stake.com. In fact, Amouranth is another of the big names that Kick has signed, although the details of his contract are unknown.
Faced with this situation, Twitch’s monetization director, Mike Minton, and content director, Laura Dee, announced the return of the cast under the Partner Plus program (the 70-30 cast). ”Our focus has always been to inspire, grow and support Twitch streamers around the world. And we want this new program to serve to reaffirm our commitment,” they said in a statement published on the platform’s blog.
They also added that these measures will be applied on October 1, and that during the next few months they will try to review the contracts and prepare new proposals for content creators.
