Twitch secures exclusive rights to stream Blizzard tournaments
Twitch has partnered with Blizzard, and it’s a sign of what’s to come in esports.
Twitch, which is now owned by Amazon, has brokered a deal with Blizzard wherein their streaming platform will be the only third-party place to watch Blizzard tournaments going forward. This means places like YouTube and Facebook will no longer benefit from tournament viewership.
The following tournaments will now only be available to watch on Twitch and on Blizzard’s website:
- Heroes of the Storm Global Championship
- StarCraft II World Championship Series
- Hearthstone Championship Tour
- Hearthstone Global Games
- World of Warcraft Arena Championship
- Overwatch APEX League
- Overwatch Premier Series
For many, this news will be insignificant, just a headline featuring two big names in the gaming community. Millions of gamers and game-watchers are familiar with Twitch, participate actively in the Twitch community, and patronize Twitch streamers. For those people, Twitch seems like the default platform to turn to when looking for a pro tournament to watch.
But YouTube is still responsible for millions of views when it comes to matters of gaming, whether it’s a how-to video or a watch-me-play stream, and some Twitch streamers also stream to YouTube. YouTube is still the more accessible platform to a wider, more casual audience, and has the potential to draw large viewerships because of that.
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Blizzard has made the choice to forgo that viewership by signing exclusivity to Twitch, and it’s a sign of what’s to come in esports. Just as TV networks bid for the rights to broadcast certain football games, streaming platforms will start to do the same after after this move by Twitch to ensure they still have an audience to stream to. It may not happen right away, but as esports grows the industry will start to turn that direction.