Anytime J.T. Brown hits the road, it’s “game on” for the 26-year-old Tampa Bay Lightning winger. Brown is always toting his portable Xbox on road trips, and now when time permits, has plans to live stream his gaming sessions via Twitch. And that’s if he has good internet, which is sometimes questionable during life away from home, according to the Burnsville, Minn. native.
He recently collaborated with the endemic gaming platform and its Partner Program that includes additional revenue for Brown based on shared advertising and channel subscriptions. Brown, who said that Battlefield 1 is his favorite game now, only recently started live streaming on Twitch with his brother.
“We thought, ‘Man, it’d be really cool if we streamed this.’ We didn’t know where it would go, but it was a fun way to interact with some fans online,” said Brown, who first gravitated towards gaming and the Call of Duty franchises specifically in 2008 as a way to stay connected to his high school friends during his two-year stint with the Waterloo Black Hawks of the United States Hockey League.
Brown explained to SportTechie that after a few weeks of streaming on Twitch, an email appeared from one of the company’s partnerships staffers inquiring about his interest in becoming an official partner. Now, he’s the first NHLer to join the Partner Program.
He said he’s currently withholding all monies from the revenue generated as he continues to form relationships with a few charities, one of which is league partner Hockey is for Everyone, and donate the proceeds to them. As a minority in hockey and with Hockey is for Everyone’s messaging about inclusion, social change and awareness for the LGBTQ community, Brown said the specific cause stood out to him.
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During the first time streaming on Twitch, Brown’s feed received less than 100 views, and while viewership has increased to a few hundred, it’s not a concern or a priority, he said.
“For me, it’s not even about the viewership,” said Brown, who has over 2,200 followers on Twitch. “We started this as a cool and new way to interact with fans and give them another opportunity to see a different side of me that they don’t necessarily see.
“When it got to 350, I was like, ‘Oh, crap. I’m not quite used to this yet.’…I can play in front of 20,000 fans and be fine, but with the video gaming and people watching you, you get a little nervous.”
Numbers not reaching the thousands or tens of thousands has other perks, according to Brown. He can respond to most messages without the conversation moving too quickly before he has a chance to answer fans’ questions. At the same time, he referenced the “community” aspect of Twitch, something he hopes to further cultivate around his own channel with fellow gamers, Tampa Bay Lightning fans and hockey enthusiasts.
He has even been gaming with teammate Tyler Johnson along with Justin Faulk, hometown friend and defenseman on the Carolina Hurricanes.
“We absolutely love it,” NHL Vice President of Consumer Products Licensing Dave McCarthy said of Brown engaging with fans through Twitch. “He’s an advocate. He’s an influencer. He’s aspirational. He’s doing it for a good cause. We would encourage and will encourage as part of the longer-term plan more and more players to ‘lean-in,’ if you will, understand the space, promote their virtual persona and encourage more and more fans to get involved.”
McCarthy was referencing the longer-term plan when it comes to the league’s role in competitive gaming, saying that NHL is still “investigating what the future looks like” as it has discussions with all of the appropriate stakeholders.
“We plan to be active in that space with the right model once we figure that out,” he said, adding that not only does there have to be buy-in from the league but also the NHLPA and EA as well.
In January, it was reported that the NHL’s involvement around esports was currently “a sperm cell” compared to other leagues such as the NFL and NBA, which has a 2K esports league that will see 17 teams participate in 2018.
However, earlier this March at the Leaders’ Sport Business Summit in New York, Commissioner Gary Bettman also shed some additional light on the future plan for the NHL and esports.
“We envision something that would augment a fan’s affinity to his team because ultimately I could envision a league-wide competition where each club runs a competition to see who will be represented in the equivalent of our championship but for our esport game,” he said.
Added Bettman: “Going back at least a year ago, we’ve been talking to EA about having a game that can replicate hockey in terms of having six players that are playing together against other teams doing this more in terms of building a community and having awareness for the game and doing it in conjunction with our teams. And if EA can continue to get some traction in developing a game that would work like that, we’ll be in that business.”