The 2023 World Cup is currently underway in League of Legends: In Germany, the broadcast rights actually belong to Summoner’s Inn, the channel of the Berlin e-sports company Freaks4U Gaming. But a Twitch streamer will overtake them in 2023. Spicy: Until 2022, Tolkin worked for the very company with which he is now competing for viewers.
What about the LoL World Cup and Twitch? The World Championships are the highlight of a LoL year; peak viewer numbers are to be expected here. But you can’t just show the pros’ games on Twitch.
The LoL Worlds games are actually broadcast on the official Twitch channels to which Riot has granted the rights. This varies depending on the country and language:
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Tolkin has significantly more viewers than the official channel
How does that look statistically? The LoL Worlds have been running for 3 weeks, since October 10th, but we’re only looking at the last 2 weeks, when the hot phase began:
Is that the case elsewhere too? This is different:
Tolkin was previously a caster at Freaks4u
Why is this spicy? Tolkin was an e-athlete himself in LoL and was considered one of the best German top laners, even if it was never quite enough for the LEC.
After his active professional career in LoL from 2020, he worked for Freaks4U as a caster for two years. Tolkin only resigned there in September 2022 because he could suddenly play for promotion to the first league with his hobby team NNO. That didn’t mix with working for Riot’s official partner Freaks4U.
Company employees reportedly react irritably to new co-streams
Could there be bad blood? Yes, it could be. These co-streams on LoL are now a rather new idea with which Riot Games apparently wants to find new viewers in order to counteract the e-sports crisis. But the official partners don’t necessarily seem to like that.
A friend and partner of Tolkin, the German Twitch streamer NoWay, said in a recent Twitch stream that Summoner’s Inn employees reacted slightly irritably when he and Tolkin were allowed to co-stream the LEC final. Employees posted some strange “xD” emotes on Twitter, which NoWay perceived as “irritable reactions”.
He himself doesn’t know how Riot Games coordinated this with Freaks4U.
However, NoWay adds that companies like Freaks4U also benefit from streamers like Tolkin, because co-streamers are not allowed to advertise their own sponsors in the streams, but rather support the main sponsors with their reach. Companies could therefore advertise with the additional reach.
Freaks4u loses 3 well-known casters
This is NoWay’s explanation: However, NoWay also expresses cautious criticism of Summoner’s Inn: He admits that the employees put a lot of work into the broadcast and are passionate about LoL, but perhaps the company had its priorities wrong.
Freaks4U has invested a lot of money in technology and production in recent years, but has lost the established casters they have built up over the years, such as Maxim, JustJohnny and Tolkin.
As NoWay suggests, it would have helped to invest more money in the casters than in the technology in order to retain the audience favorites. But he admits that influencers are very expensive.
The casters would have already taken salary cuts because they wanted to do something good for the German scene.
According to NoWay, it is difficult for companies like Freaks4U and official streams like Summoner’s Inn to retain viewers long-term. Twitch streamers would have advantages here, for example through a parasocial relationship that viewers develop with streamers – but also through their personality. In Tolkin’s case, his expertise when it comes to LoL players from South Korea and Japan is an important factor.
He himself watches the LoL Worlds via various co-streaming channels in English and switches from streamer to streamer.
We at MeinMMO have requested a statement from Freaks4u and will add it as soon as we have it.
Freaks4U says: No bad blood, but the ecosystem has to work for everyone
Update, November 2nd, 4:58 p.m.: We have received the statement from Freaks4U regarding NoWay’s statements. Our question to Freaks4U was, among other things, whether there could be “bad blood” between Freaks4U and co-streamers, as NoWay suggests:
There is absolutely no “bad blood” towards Tolkin on our part. We value him both as a person and for the added value he brings to the German League of Legends scene. Before he focused on influencer work, he was part of our team and there was always a positive collaboration.
Nevertheless, the co-streams are of course in a certain competition compared to our own broadcasts, where, in addition to the general economic situation, we have many employees who have been putting their heart and soul and all their time and effort into creating a positive experience for the fans for years see their heart project at risk through co-streaming. Nevertheless, there is no “bad blood” on the part of our employees here either. The right approach for the future must be to find the middle ground together with co-streams and Riot, from which everyone benefits and where good synergies between the streams can be created with enough advance notice. This gives the audience a broader offering, which is good at first, but in the end it has to work for everyone involved in the ecosystem.
More about Tolkin:
LoL: German Twitch streamer gives up his dream of becoming a professional in 2020, starts a job – now he has to quit because he’s too good