Esports Sponsorship and Twitch – Why brands are getting their stream on
What is Twitch
Twitch, purchased for $970 million by Amazon in 2014, has quickly become the de facto home of video game streaming, esports, and live broadcasting on the internet.
Twitch Advertising and Sponsorship Opportunities
While brands have always had the ability to run cut-in ads and rotating logos – they now see a major opportunity to create content and collaborate with streamers and esports tournaments to create content in an attempt to reach some of the hardest audience segments to reach like men between the ages of 18-34.
This audience of more than 15 million unique daily visitors each spend an average of 95 minutes daily watching streams on the platform. They help create the tightly knit and highly involved community of influencers, players, and subscribers. In a study leveraging internal data from Twitch, the Twitch community had an overall openness to advertising, with users stating:
- 82% say sponsorships are good for the gaming industry
- 78% want to see more charity in gaming
- 80% Are open to brands sponsoring a specific gamer or team
Difficulties for Brands
Many brands have trouble understanding their respective returns on investment across Esports sponsorship opportunities. This confusion has historically stemmed from difficulties in measuring audiences, streams, and digital moments in a way that can be used to quantify sponsorship spend and achievement of other corporate goals.
However, Esports sponsorships are already making headlines, with brands of all types making major investments in Esports teams.
From Nissan to Wendy’s, and even Miller Lite, there have been many sponsorships announced with significant awareness generated for partnering brands.
Ninja
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins is a streamer who reached celebrity status when he broke the record for most subscribers on Twitch with over 250,000 and was chosen as the first video gamer to grace the cover of ESPN magazine. His rise in popularity has also attracted the interest of brands, leading to sponsorships from Red Bull, Uber Eats, PSD Underwear, and more, totally over $2.46 million in endorsements.
In July, Ninja announced that he’d be streaming exclusively on Mixer, a streaming platform owned by Microsoft. Before his departure from Twitch, we analyzed Ninja’s Twitch audience leveraging our new Twitch Audience Analytics capabilities to discover who brands are reaching when partnering with the famed Fortnite streamer.
Compared to an audience of the top professional athletes, Ninja’s audience was 2 times more likely to be Gen Z and 3 times more likely to have an affinity for soft drinks. Since leaving Twitch, Ninja has announced new sponsorships, including a significant partnership with Adidas, which included a signature shoe deal.
No shortcuts. Only long days. Never let anyone tell you that you can’t catch your dreams.
— Ninja (@Ninja) August 27, 2019
Choose your path. Put the TIME IN.
I’m humbled, and excited, to officially announce my partnership with @adidasoriginals
. https://t.co/B42gK4AoF5#createdwithadidas pic.twitter.com/PdAKnCflCD
Improved Audience Analytics
With over 2.2 million creators sharing their games and clips live on Twitch monthly, it can be challenging to identify who could be the right fit for a brand’s sponsorship in esports.
With enhanced social media sponsorship valuation and Twitch audience analytics for streamers and games, Zoomph enables brands to better prospect which unique audiences have affinities that match their target market. With these insights, brands can better reach the growing audience on Twitch and esports as a whole.
