Kick faces “significant” sustainability risk if top streamers leave

Streaming platform Kick is being warned about a “significant” problem if its top creators decide to leave the site.

Kick saw some massive growth in 2024, expanding its talent pool by reeling in streamers from Latin America and the Middle East, but its top names are still by far the site’s biggest assets.

In 2024, Kick was dominated by its biggest creators with Westcol the top performer, reaching 62.48M hours watched. Behind him are N3on with 54.02M, Adin Ross at 52.68M, and xQc who had 51.52M.

According to StreamsCharts, Kick’s ten top stars amounted to 19.7% of the platform’s 1,944,612,06 total hours watched this year.

This could be a major issue in the future for Kick, especially when compared with industry rivals Twitch and YouTube.

Kick warned about “heavy reliance” on top streamers

In contrast to Kick, Twitch and YouTube’s ten biggest streamers made up 4.2 and 4.6% of total watch hours.

Looking deeper, Twitch’s top 100 streamers made up 15.1% of watch time while YouTube Gaming’s top 100 sits at 17.2%.

However, Kick’s top 100 channels made up 50.7% of watch time and the top 1000 made up 81.5%, much higher than Twitch (38.2%) and YouTube (38.4%).

StreamsCharts told Dexerto that Twitch and YouTube’s distributed viewer base give them an advantage over Kick, because a small group of streamers hold the majority of watch time on the green platform.

“While Twitch continues to dominate the gaming live-streaming industry with its unparalleled watchtime, the platform’s relatively low concentration ratio highlights its resilience due to a diverse creator ecosystem,” Nazar Babenko, Product Manager of Streams Charts explained.

“Conversely, Kick’s heavy reliance on top-tier streamers exposes it to significant risk, underscoring the critical need for platform diversification to ensure long-term stability.”

This news comes as Adin Ross appeared ready to leave Kick behind for good, taking his share of hours watched with him. However, the streamer confirmed that his influencer boxing program ‘Brand Risk’ would be staying on.

We’ll have to see what 2025 holds for Kick and if they can solve this issue in the event any of its most-watched creators decide to jump ship and potentially put the site in jeopardy.