Here's yet another story for anybody who feels that video games are a pointless hobby. Félix Lengyel, a popular live streamer and "Overwatch" pro best known by his handle xQc, has reportedly signed a contract valued nearly $100 million with Kick, a streaming platform that is attempting to carve out an audience for itself from the dominance enjoyed by Twitch in the streaming world.
The Kick/xQc partnership was announced via a post on Twitter from the former, but the $100 million figure comes from xQc's agent Ryan Morrison, who spoke to The New York Times about the deal. According to Morrison, the base value of the contract is $70 million, but its various financial incentives push it into the $100 million neighborhood, which means xQc could make more in two years of playing video games than the $97.13 million LeBron James recently secured for two more years with the Lakers.
Amy Sussman/Getty Images
As the agent, who seems understandably proud of the contract, put it:
"This is more than most professional athletes and megastars. This is one of the highest deals in entertainment, period."
The expectation is that xQc, who is one of the most popular Twitch streamers with nearly 12 million subscribers, will now make Kick his primary streaming home. But since the contract is non-exclusive, he'll be free to continue making content on Twitch, YouTube, or any other platform he chooses.
Still, in a press statement of his own, xQc expressed enthusiasm for the creative freedom he'll get from Kick:
"Kick is allowing me to try and do things I haven't been able to before. I'm extremely excited to take this opportunity and maximize it into new creative and fresh ideas over coming years."
He doesn't mention it in the press statement, but the financial terms are more favorable too, since Twitch takes a 50 percent cut of subscription fees while Kick takes only five percent.
It's all part of a gambit from Kick, which was only introduced earlier this year, to draw Twitch's top talent away from the established platform. Dr. Disrespect, another popular Twitch streamer, is rumored to be signing a similar deal, worth around $75 million.
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