Kick staff explain why platform is “primed” to lead esports industry

In a conversation with Dexerto, Kick staff explained why they believe their platform is “primed” to become the number one esports streaming service in the world, and it’s largely to do with advertisements.

Over the near two-year span since its launch, Kick has been making waves with blockbuster signings, balanced out by some not-so-good headlines about a number of pesky creators, but overall has been a success on Stake’s part as it has grown to become the third most used streaming platform.

However, a lesser-discussed part of their growth strategy is esports. At the start of 2024, Kick slowly signed partnerships with orgs, most notably Team Secret and Bleed Esports. Later in April just before Dreamhack Melbourne, they also announced a partnership with ESL for their in-person events.

From there, Kick has gone on to secure the streaming rights for BLAST and PGL, broadcasting some of the biggest Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 tournaments of the year.

While certainly a strong start, it’s only the beginning of Kick’s broader esports strategy.

Speaking to Dexerto, Kick Account Manager Oliver ‘DickStacy’ Tierney (yes, that Aussie CS legend), explained to us in full detail why they want to take over the esports industry and how they are primed to do so.  

Proving why Kick is where esports should be

“We want to expand our esports offering through all different aspects,” Tierney began. The way they’re attempting their slow rise is by “attacking it from all angles.”

Be it major partnerships with tournament organizers, supporting local esports scenes, or making the viewing experience better than their competitors, expansion by any means is essentially the goal for the platform right now.

“It’s pretty hard for people to stop watching on Twitch and YouTube and come to Kick without a very good reason to,” Tierney admitted, and he isn’t wrong. Riot learned this lesson the hard way with the failure of the Riot Esports Network, shutting down as it was obvious no viewer was going to switch from their platform of choice to the publisher’s own app. We also saw this years prior with MLG’s own streaming platform falling short.

As Tierney explained, Kick is going to have to incentivize viewers in some sort of way both Twitch and YouTube can’t. The main draws today are straightforward; Kick has no ads and their broadcast speed is faster.

No ads have always been a part of Kick’s appeal, and it’s obviously a very attractive incentive considering esports broadcasts themselves are already chock full.

“People are sick of ads,” Tierney said. “When it comes to Twitch, you’ve got four minutes of ads every 15 minutes for esports… It’s not healthy for the ecosystem.”

Not only that, they claim Kick’s broadcast speed is faster by a margin of three seconds. It might not matter in the grand scheme of things, but for hardcore viewers that may be a good enough reason to switch over as it means you can watch the action as close to real-time as possible.

The one drawback, however, which Tierney was quick to acknowledge, is the current lack of Drops on the platform. “Drops is one of the biggest ones,” he said. “It just drives so much viewership, so Drops is a pillar of integration we need to get refined.”

If you want an understanding of how important Drops are to esports, a tier two Overwatch 2 broadcast once broke records all because a Mercy skin was part of the rewards for watching along. Viewers love drops, and it’s something Kick still lacks when it comes to driving esports viewership.

Kick’s true esports aspirations

As of right now, Kick has the broadcast rights to the Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 tournaments of BLAST and PGL. While obviously far from encompassing every game and TO out there, it’s a solid foundation to build from as Tierney stressed.

Although they have an in-person events partnership with ESL’s Dreamhack, it isn’t the full shebang. They had co-streamers watching the Esports World Cup but didn’t get to fully broadcast the entire event. And when it comes Riot’s IPs, some of the biggest in the industry, that’s its own set of complications. Rest assured, Kick is working to well, kick that door down too with a long-term goal to get Riot games onboard.

As Tierney explained, they want to get as many games and esports broadcasters on Kick as possible. Perhaps not as an exclusive contract in the likes of the Overwatch League and CoD League with YouTube, but to be considered as one of the default streaming platforms that you’d have your games on.

CS2 was among the initial games Kick went into, as it was “plug and play” since the Valve titles are mainly run by third-party organizers rather than the publishers themselves.

However, other massive FPS and MOBA titles, namely Valorant and League of Legends are missing for the time being.

Right now, as Tierney added, Kick is looking into supporting local scenes more than YouTube and Twitch, which may be an attraction for more TOs down the line.

He pointed out how Kick has a large South American and Middle Eastern community, which is true as some of its biggest streamers are from the regions. Additionally mentioning PGL’s plans of increased local tournaments, he outlined how Kick is looking to help out with broadcasting.

“We want all esports,” Tierney simply said.

As of right now, Kick is still slowly expanding into the esports realm, game by game and TO by TO, but it’s certainly moving forward and they’re not slowing down anytime soon. As Tierney proclaimed, “We are primed for it. We are the most premium platform for esports by far at the moment.”