Mentioned in this article
- Team Liquid has partnered with HUYA to broadcast its player livestreams from North America and Europe to viewers in China.
- Select content livestreamed on HUYA will be translated in real-time for viewers, creating new opportunities for fan engagement.
- Tightened livestream regulations have made it difficult for fans to access content from Western organizations in China, much less communicate with the players.
Team Liquid 
has announced a partnership with Chinese game streaming platform HUYA . The exclusive streaming deal will include broadcasts from Team Liquid’s global US and European teams—with select streams translated in real-time.
“Team Liquid began its search for a streaming partner in China almost two years ago now but we didn’t get the proper introductions until about a year ago,” said Team Liquid COO Mike Milanov in an interview with The Esports Observer. “Our relationship with HUYA began through mutual connections we had with agencies, teams, advertisers, and publishers in China. Team Liquid and HUYA share the same core values when it comes to fan experience, premium content quality standards, monetization, and long term vision for partnership. This along with their best in class technology, content offerings, and growth strategy made them our number one partner choice in China.”
Milanov added that Team Liquid has had a “growing Chinese audience since 2015,” and that many of those fans are already HUYA users. He said that while there has not been a specific demand for esports organization content from the market in China, platforms in the region are looking for long term partners “who will deliver a unique piece of inventory for their users.”
Milanov also noted that having operations and partnerships in China will “definitely increase our value as a sports franchise.”
“A large majority of our users are huge esports fans, not only of domestic teams but also of international powerhouses.”
“Team Liquid’s goal is to provide as much value as possible to our current and future partners on a global scale. Many of our brand partnerships start in a certain region and then unlock globally but some are global from the start. Having the ability to show advertisers and partners the global fan base which follows Team Liquid, our localized social media strategies, and intensive community engagement sets us apart from our peers.”
In 2016, the Chinese government issued strict regulations on livestreams that impacted, among many other things, viewers’ ability to access content from Western esports organizations directly.
Teaming up with HUYA allows Team Liquid to engage with its audience in China—especially veteran League of Legends pro Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, whose Chinese fanbase is “massive,” according to the organization.
“A large majority of our users are huge esports fans, not only of domestic teams but also of international powerhouses,” said HUYA Inc. VP Ziyang Zhao. “Following the success of our partnerships with Korean organizations, we knew that our next step would be to partner with a western team. Team Liquid was the logical choice because of their incredible history in esports as well as their existing popularity within China. Their brand power, popular players, and professionalism make us confident in the future of this partnership and we know that the HUYA audience will be excited to have this content on their screens.”
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In order to facilitate streaming to a platform in China, Team Liquid and HUYA enlisted Restream.io to provide the needed tech.
HUYA was the first Chinese live streaming platform to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
“The biggest challenge for streamers looking to broadcast to Chinese platforms is the reliability of their streams,” said Restream.io CEO Alexander Khuda in a statement to The Esports Observer. “When the origination of the stream and the nearest ingest server is too far apart, it can cause streams to drop or be unreliable. Most of the Chinese platforms do not have the infrastructure (ingest servers) in North America to accept video feeds from a local North American streamer.
“Another challenge that we see often is that many professional streamers are speaking in a language other than Chinese when streaming to Chinese platforms. They still would like to engage and speak with their audience in Chinese and have the resources to hire translation or ‘dubbing’ services to speak over their streams in Chinese. Using our stream pull features, we offer the ability for those streamers to solve this problem.”
HUYA was the first Chinese live streaming platform to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and as of Q1 2019, boasted a monthly average user (MAU) base of 123.M, 5.4M of which were paying users. HUYA also owns Overwatch League team Chengdu Hunters .
Team Liquid is the second such organization in recent months to adapt to Chinese regulations through a strategic partnership. In May, Gen.G Esports made platform Douyu the official Chinese streaming partner of its South Korean League of Legends team.
