That’s why he’s investing heavily to make sure his fanbase feel connected not only to him but to each other, and as a result has cultivated an audience that will mobilize to support his various ventures, regardless of whether they’re gaming or not. Kolcheff’s lifeline will always be the “MFAM,” or “Mercs family,” a community that is the envy of the creator world. “It's kind of hit this plateau,” says Kolcheff’s manager Justin Miclat, “where there was tons and tons of interest and growth, and now we're having to justify continued investment and continued marketing dollars flowing into gaming and esports.” Over the past two years he’s signed deals with the likes of Under Armour, UFC, Beats By Dre and more, totalling $2.7 million in 2022. During the pandemic, his mix of relatable, Midwestern everyman and hyper-masculine, aspirational cool guy – someone just as likely to talk on stream about football as Fortnite – made him the perfect bridge between gamers and the mainstream brands trying to reach them. Kolcheff is one of the successor’s to Blevins’ place at the top of the gaming category. Kolcheff signs autographs for a fan at his San Diego meet-and-greet event. In September, he lost his Twitch Partner status and announced he would be simultaneously streaming across all platforms. When Microsoft folded Mixer less than a year later, Blevins received a lump sum payout but returned to Twitch with a fraction of his former viewership. In 2020 Forbes estimated he earned $17 million, thanks in part to a massive exclusivity deal with Microsoft MSFT-backed streaming service Mixer. Tyler “Ninja” Blevins is perhaps the best example of just how volatile the industry can be. Twitch did not respond to requests for comment. That change alone would cost Kolcheff more than $50,000 per month. A few weeks later Twitch announced it would be lowering the amount of subscription revenue share kept by top creators from 70% down to 50% starting in June of 2023, which could signal a potential strategy shift away from big payouts for its biggest stars. Twitch saw another wave of streamers depart last September. The platform exclusivity bubble has almost certainly begun to burst. Kolcheff made $8 million overall in 2021 and $15 million in 2022, with sponsorship and licensing revenues remaining flat and viewership numbers, by Kolcheff’s own admission, down by almost half this past year. One does not need to do much math to figure out just how significant the deal was. Kolcheff signed his latest two-year deal with Twitch in October 2021 at the peak of his leverage, when his daily Call of Duty: Warzone streams were regularly drawing over 50,000 concurrent viewers and several other high profile creators had just defected to YouTube. These deals soon exceeded several million dollars, not including other base payments like a split of channel subscriptions or donations from viewers. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, demand for gaming content exploded – hours watched on Twitch overall went up 80 percent between March 2020 and March 2021 – and a bidding war broke out among platforms like Twitch, YouTube and Facebook to sign top streamers to exclusive contracts.
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