Esports work better when you leave out esports players

earthpressnews
Leksand extended the winning streak beat AIK

There is a new trend in e-sports: If you want spectators, you simply leave out the e-athletes and rely on twitch streamers who play at a high level. In Germany, the streamer team NNO proved this thesis at League of Legends in 2022, in the USA the disguised toast in the women’s department of Valorant was successful.

This is the situation in Valorant:

  • In the US, the Twitch streamer “Disguised Toast” has opened an e-sports team in Valorant and put together a squad to shake up the “Game Changer” project: With the project, Riot Games wants women and members of marginalized groups to get into facilitate eSports.
  • However, the streamer said he didn’t have enough money and time for a “real team”, so he didn’t hire e-sportsmen, but Twitch streamers who play Valorant with ambition
  • For this he was sharply criticized by a woman on Twitter, saying that e-sportswomen should be given a chance. Getting Twitch streamers on the team is like a slap in the face for all e-athletes in Valorant. His behavior was “disrespectful”.

    • Disugised Toast reacted quite emotionally to this criticism. That would exclude people. He only signed players who are suitable for e-sports. The criticism is not okay.

    But you could tell that he took the criticism seriously and admitted that the team was more about attracting attention than about winning games and tournaments.

    Valorant Champions Tour 2023 LOCK IN Cinematic Trailer

    More videos

    A team of Twitch streamers ensures a spectator boom at Valorant

    This is the turning point: The team of Disguised Toast twitch streamers is now competing in their first tournament and indeed there is the desired result: the number of viewers at the tournament has tripled, writes one user:

  • Last year’s games had around 8,500 spectators at their peak.
  • Now there are already 24,000.
  • One of the team’s players says: 100,000 viewers were even reached across all channels combined.

    • Apparently, Disguised Toast has achieved its goal of giving more attention to the “Game Changer” project.

    Recommended Editorial Content

    At this point you will find external content from Twitter that complements the article.

    Show Twitter content

    I consent to external content being displayed to me. Personal data can be transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy.

    In German LoL, a team of Twitch streamers set viewer records

    What about LoL? Here in Germany we observed exactly the same phenomenon among men in 2022:

  • In the second German league for LoL, a team consisting only of Twitch streamers competed. Among them was NoWay4U, one of the biggest Twitch streamers ever.
  • Many in the team used to be professionals in LoL, but had ended their professional careers in favor of the streams at an advanced age – but it was still enough for the 2nd league.
  • Ultimately, their power had many more spectators than the top games in the 1st league. NNO games reached 100,000 spectators. The games in the 1st league had around 30,000. Again, the numbers of streamers were 3 times larger.

    • Content creators discover troubled e-sports and attract a lot of attention

    That’s why this is so important: E-sport is currently suffering. Many teams are having to cut back on spending or even shut down their businesses altogether.

    But you can see that projects from popular Twitch streamers are simultaneously bringing the viewers and attention that esports teams so desperately want.

    Everything you need to know about the LoL team Eintracht Spandau – in 4 minutes

    More videos

    The successful e-sports teams have known this for a long time and work closely with content creators: the large organizations FaZe or 100 Thieves specialize in strengthening their brands via content creators on YouTube and Twitch and selling fashion products, for example sell.

    In Germany, YouTuber “HandofBlood” founded his own LoL team. In France and Spain, popular content creators have done the same.

    This breathed new power into the scene in all 3 countries and ensured an increasing presence on social media.

    This could be rather negative for the “competitive side” of e-sports, but there is apparently no way around content creators for commercial success.

    LoL: E-sports are dying in the USA – 2-time champion allegedly sells team and fires everyone

    mmod-game