Mentioned in this article
- Twitch has signed Benjamin “DrLupo” Lupo, Saqib “LIRIK” Zahid, and Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar, to multi-year exclusive contracts.
- The three have over 550M unique combined views.
- The signings come at a time where streaming platforms are vying for talent to draw in viewers.
Twitch has signed professional gaming streamers Benjamin “DrLupo” Lupo, Saqib “LIRIK” Zahid, and Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar, to multi-year exclusive contracts that will see the trio continue to live stream exclusively on the platform. All three deals were facilitated by Loaded, the gamer/content creator management company responsible for overseeing key areas of each individual’s career.
“These professional streamers are a part of the core foundation of Twitch,” said Brandon Freytag, CEO and founder of Loaded. “Each started to stream in 2011/2012 and have built massive and passionate audiences due to their engaging streams and participation in several iconic events throughout the years. We are excited to have each of them continue their success with Twitch in an even bigger way for more years to come.”
Lupo, a self-described father, husband, streamer from the midwest, has over 4.4M followers on Instagram, 1.57M on Youtube, and over 3.6M followers on Twitch. He plays mostly first-person shooters, but also game titles that are new or hot at the time. Lupo raised over $1.3M USD for charity partners in 2018, including more than $600K in a 24-hour live stream for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
Zahid ranks as the 23rd most popular Twitch streamer, with 2.3M followers, and boasts 87K followers on Instagram, and 257K on YouTube. A variety gaming streamer, Zahid started with Twitch in 2011 playing World of Warcraft, but eventually started playing a plethora of titles.
Betar has over 4M followers on Twitch, 1.78M subscribers on YouTube, and 3.2M followers on Instagram. Sponsored by both Monster Energy and Audio-Technica, Betar streams a variety of games including Fortnite, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and World of Warcraft.
The three popular live streamers have nearly 550M combined views.
These signings come at a time when various streaming platforms are competing for talent and views.
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, two of the most popular streamers for Twitch in the past, jumped ship and signed exclusive contracts with Mixer, Microsoft’s entry into the streaming platform space.
Caffeine, the live streaming service founded by former Apple designers Ben Keighran and Sam Roberts, signed rapper, singer, and songwriter Kiari “Offset” Kendrell to an exclusive streaming deal, expanding the genre of streamers to its site.
