YouTube versus Twitch.
After YouTube’s parent company, Google, attempted to acquire Twitch last year, it would be Amazon to end up buying the gaming livestreaming upstart for nearly $1 billion. YouTube, though, didn’t necessarily need to validate the space with such a move, they’ve had a surplus of games-related content within their platform, virtually since its inception. Their creators and built-in community have organically grown and surfaced this segment into the forefront of YouTube’s business, where it could not be ignored further. The launch of YouTube Gaming intends to focus a dedicated operation around this vertical, which should optimize user experience and navigation.
Twitch, though, accounts for over 40 percent of all live video streaming traffic online alone. They’ve catered and crafted their platform for gaming users since the start. A casual viewer beginning to engage in Twitch wouldn’t quite decipher the layers of different communities that exist there. The number of exclusive partnerships within eSports that Twitch has doesn’t hurt their cause, either.
While YouTube dominates VOD consumption of eSports (20 percent of YouTube’s top 1,000 partner channels and 27 percent of minutes produced each month in 2012, per The Daily Dot), Twitch still stands as the number one live broadcaster. There’s a growing trend of creating eSports events as well as media coverage that, somewhat, resembles traditional pro sports–almost a direct response to the gaudy metrics.
However, it’s the brand partnerships part of the equation that’s relatively new in exploring ways to capitalize off of the movement.
On YouTube, one marketing tactic that’s shown signs it can work pertains to the proper alignment with popular creators. With this method, brands can quickly gain the right kind of exposure by leveraging someone’s influence. There’s a balance between being authentic while allowing the talent to work without explicit promotion.
Stacy Ferreira, AdMoar’s Chief Executive Officer, a company that brings brands and YouTube creators together, told Inc., “Your aim should be to integrate your products with influencers whose voice aligns with your brand and mission. Brands that integrate their products into highly sought after content get a two-for-one benefit. They get word of mouth marketing while also reaching a much wider and engaged audience.”
On Twitch, though, display ads and video media have primarily been how brands opt-in, with some custom integration cases. This Old Spice example distills an experience where Twitch users have to engage in the chat box in order to direct action on-screen; the idea being to offer a simulation that copies gaming at some level.
It’s the former YouTube ploy, however, where Whistle Sports is expanding its millennial media network, now entering the eSports world.
Whistle Sports’ first signee in this space is Air Japes. He’s a YouTube creator that specializes on FIFA videos, where he boasts 337,668 subscribers and garnered nearly 65 million views on his channel. His tutorials and streaming places him among the top talent within Whistle Sports’ 285 YouTube channels, joining the likes of Dude Perfect and Jeremy Lin.
“The viewership for eSports athletes is far too large to ignore,” Ben Lindemer, Whistle Sports’ Partnerships Coordinator, tells SportTechie.
“Bringing on FIFA players allows us to enter into the gaming vertical, while still sticking to our sports vision. Partners like Air Japes also have a great mind of European soccer, and a passion for sports outside of gaming,” added Lindemer.
Considering that eSports has become a spectator event virtually in the same vein as mainstream sports, its inclusion into Whistle Sports’ portfolio complements their other offerings and they expect to treat this asset as any other.
There’s a lot of people, though, that play video games simply for fun or entertainment. The challenge is converting the recreational gamer or viewer into the eSports that accompanies it, especially with how it’s positioned on YouTube. While even more non-eSports enthusiasts exist, trying to convert their preconceived notions to embrace these games as legitimate sports–as online viewership metrics say they are–is a larger hurdle to overcome. Whistle Sports will strive to tailor this eSports content to its young user base–the same users that would rather play a game with a ball on their consoles than in real life.
Landing Air Japes is a win, in it by itself, towards growing mutually together, as he explains to SportTechie why he decided to be a part of Whistle Sports: “The vision that Whistle has, as a whole, and for my channel fall in line with my own vision of how I would like to the Air Japes brand progress. I also felt that Whistle could offer me the best opportunities to interact with athletes here in the United States. Many United Kingdom-based FIFA guys are given opportunities to interact with professional footballers that are, seemingly, hard to come by at this time in the States.”
This how-to video of Air Japes encapsulates his viral success thus far:
Accordingly, Lindemer mentions that it’s Air Japes’ professionalism and maturity that make him the kind of creator Whistle Sports wants in its team. Such attributes in the gaming sphere should translate with whom brands would like to associate themselves with, too. Whistle Sports would elect to become a “big fish in the FIFA pond rather than a small fish in the League of Legends or Call of Duty pond,” which, again, falls under the sports-focused umbrella of its company.
One upcoming show centered around Air Japes that’s in development is called “Running the Pitch.” The premise is to present the ultimate FIFA experience; Air Japes would travel to some of the biggest clubs in Europe, challenge the clubs’ most passionate fans, and start to bridge the gap between FIFA gaming and real soccer. They’d like a sponsor to support this journey, allowing them to engage with both Euro soccer fans and FIFA’s global fan bases simultaneously.
For custom brand campaigns to flourish, Whistle Sports is working on continually growing these YouTube audiences, with collaborations being key. While the release of a new FIFA title tends to spike viewership, it’s imperative for Air Japes to partner with non-gaming creators and pro athletes moving forward. They want to find audiences that don’t overlap, but are still interested in both creators; there wouldn’t be much of an uptick with a similar influencer profile as Air Japes in a partnership.
“We want to bring the inner-gamers to the spotlight with these guys, and help them gain an even larger fan base through our FIFA creators,” says Lindemer, with respects to partnering with pro athletes that are video gamers, but don’t broadcast it.
“The great thing about gamers is that they do not have to stick to only their respective game. An example would be Air Japes playing a non-FIFA game (perhaps a Nintendo title), which may go over better than one of our soccer freestylers picking up a baseball bat,” Lindemer continued.
eSports and gaming, in general, is very much in its growth stage, with users across platforms also gravitating to their favorite athletes. Livestreaming spearheads much of the interest in the space, which will be interesting to watch the conversion stemming from Twitch into YouTube, or vice versa. Brands, though, are noticing eSports as less of a fad and as more of a cultural entity that’s here to stay. Within this community, top gamers have been able to make a living over some time now. Whistle Sports’ partnership with Air Japes stands as a strategic attempt to merge a “niche” with the millennial popularity of fellow YouTube stars.