The first Twitch Rivals event of 2024 was IlloJuan’s Hunt & Run event. The event received more than half a million concurrent viewers at peak, making it the series’ most popular event since last year’s Squid Craft Games 2. Twitch Rivals’ most popular events of late have heavily featured Spanish-speaking creators, and the winning formula of inviting these creators to events has been proven once again.
The event spanned four days, hosting a variety of tests, events, and bloody PvP fights. With a winner-takes-all $100K prize pool up for grabs, streamers from all aspects of the industry joined the event to compete. IlloJuan’s event continued the trend of these events, which were originally built around the Spanish-speaking community, inviting more international creators who have orientated their careers around Minecraft.
Viewership Statistics for the Twitch Rivals Hunt & Run event
Across the four days of the event, over 150 channels broadcasted the event to their Twitch channels. In total, more than 6.1M Hours Watched were generated by the assortment of creators involved with the event, and the first day of the competition was the most-watched day, having generated 1.83M Hours Watched alone.
Although we might usually expect esports events and the like to generate more watch time as the event progresses and advances towards its final stages, this is not what occurred here. The Hunt & Run event started off with almost 200 participants, and each day more and more of these were eliminated from the event. The final day of the event featured only 72 participants, after three days of grueling eliminations.
Of the top three most popular creators of the event, only IlloJuan and ElSpreen advanced to the final day. Auronplay garnered 90.9K Peak Viewers for his gameplay on Day 2 of the event and was later eliminated by the dangerous wildlife later on Day 2. ElSpreen reached 121.9K Peak Viewers on the final day of the event, just as he was eliminated. Spreen reached a peak viewership on the final day roughly twice that of his peak viewership for the first three days of the event. If Auronplay could have reached the final day, it is likely the peak viewership for his channel would have been much higher.
IlloJuan was the most popular creator of his own event. He reached 205K Peak Viewers, but not while he was participating. He was eliminated shortly before achieving this peak, but he stuck around to watch the finals of the event unfold. As he was one of the only streamers actively spectating the event, he received a significant boost to his viewership.
The Twitch Rivals Minecraft event was hugely popular. Over 6.1M Hours Watched and more than half a million concurrent viewers at peak. It was the most popular event in the Twitch Rivals series since Squid Craft 2, but how does it stack up against other events of the past year?
Twitch Rivals events of the past year comparison
The Squid Craft Games 2 event reached 1.68M Peak Viewers, becoming the most popular Twitch Rivals event since the inaugural Squid Craft Games, which reached 2.25M Peak Viewers. Although the recent Hunt & Run event by IlloJuan was not able to match the huge popularity of these events, it did outperform every other Twitch Rivals event of the past year.
The two Rust events on this ranking were largely watched by English-speaking audiences, although the 10th Anniversary Team Battle IV did receive a substantial Spanish-speaking viewership. One of the keys to the popularity of IlloJuan’s event is simply the sizable Spanish-speaking audience for these collaborative events. As streamers like ibai or WestCol have proven, collaborating with other streamers for various events is a key to success in the Spanish-speaking sector of the live-streaming industry.
Since the inaugural Squid Craft Games event, more and more English-speaking Minecraft creators have been welcomed to these events. However, not all fans have had a warm welcome for these creators. Some Spanish-speaking fans have complained that introducing these streamers to the events dilutes the representation of the Spanish-speaking community. At the Hunt & Run event, American Valorant streamer Dasnerth was the ultimate champion and took home the $100K prize pool. Some fans have had a less-than-savoury reaction to an American winning the event.
American Twitch streamer and content creator Sapnap is spreading some positivity in light of these reactions. The Minecraft content creator has over 3.26M Followers on Twitch and over 3.4M Followers on X (formerly Twitter). He took to Twitter to make a public announcement:
“I’ve had so much fun in the Spanish events recently and made so many friends, the Spanish community is so amazing. I really want to give back to them for being such amazing hosts and competitors, so I will be donating $50,000 to Spanish creators as a thank you for welcoming me into their events and communities.
[...]
over the next 10 days I’m going to be giving a total of $30,000 to 10 different Spanish streamers. I’ll pick ten random Spanish streamers and donate $3,000 to them.
[...]
I also wanted to find out the true SPANISH winner of the Hunt & Run Event, so Dream & I came up with the idea to invite the final 3 Spanish speaking contestants to a streamed WINNER TAKES ALL REMATCH for $20,000. So, here I invite: Shadoune666, kendomurft, and Conterstine to a final 3 REMATCH against each other, winner takes all $20,000!”
The Spanish-speaking community is why the Twitch Rivals Minecraft events are as popular and highly watched as they are. Sapnap and Dream are spreading some love back to this community, and their upcoming $20K rematch for the Spanish-speaking creators involved in the event may very well be one of the most popular Minecraft events of the year.
