Livestreaming at its roots is an industry fuelled by video games. Gaming as an industry represents a portal directly to younger generations for many brands, and numerous household name brands have sponsored various gaming events, including esports, to capture the attention of these young and passionate gaming fans. Not only do brands sponsor events, but many host their own gaming livestreams on their very own channels. In this report, Streams Charts explores the top non-endemic gaming brands which hosted gaming streams from Q1 to Q3 of 2024.
Although GOG are a borderline case, but the company is a digital distribution platform, and offers more media than just games. Nevertheless, similar to computer peripheral companies, although they operate parallel to the gaming industry, they are not a gaming company.
Gaming and esports in particular has opened the door for many brands to enter livestreaming. While some companies host their own casual gaming streams, others prefer to capture the attention of competitive fans through esports competitions; this can be particularly useful for brands already established in sports, from football to motorsport.
For this report in particularly, we have only tracked viewership results for Twitch livestreams. Twitch is one of the most popular gaming livestreaming platforms, and allows us to create an overview of a significant portion of the world’s population. North America, Europe, and Japan are just some of the major audiences for advertisers majorly represented by Twitch’s viewership.
Most-watched non-endemic brands by gaming livestreams viewership
In terms of the total raw watch time achieved by brands from January 2024 until the end of September, Red Bull lead the way as the most-watched non-endemic brand in gaming livestreaming. Although Red Bull were live across 9 different channels, appealing to different regions around the world, most of their watch time came from the RedBull Twitch channel.
Red Bull’s viewership largely comes from their own esports events, tying in well to their competitive and driven brand ideology. Red Bull hosts events in all kinds of esports genres, from shooters like Valorant, to fighting games like Street Fighter 6, and even special events for games like Elden Ring. In total, Red Bull generated 474.8K Hours Watched throughout the year, leading our ranking.
Aside from Red Bull, electronics companies were highly popular, with these companies easily positioned to enter the gaming market. This includes general electronics companies like Lenovo and Samsung, hardware companies like NVIDIA and ASUS, and gaming-focused computer peripheral companies like SteelSeries: all of these companies were highly watched in livestreaming this year. Samsung was in second place of our ranking with 170K Hours Watched; the Korean electronics company outperformed companies like ASUS and SteelSeries, who largely hosted casual gaming streams on their channels.
Telecommunications company AT&T are well-known in livestreaming for their “Annihilator Cup” series. The cup is usually a short event hosted for various disciplines, but in 2024 they mostly hosted League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Street Fighter 6, and Fortnite events. With the help of all these events, AT&T were able to generate 116.6K Hours Watched.
Footballing associations from Germany and Portugal were also able to rank highly in our list here, with 87.9K HW and 40.3K HW, respectively. The Deutscher Fußball-Bund (German Football Association) hosted EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) gameplay on their channel, while the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol (Portuguese Football Federation) hosted both EA Sports FC and Football Manager 2024: a highly popular game where you take control of a football team’s management. These two brands reflect the new combination of traditional sports and gaming, which has been taking the livestreaming industry by storm.
Most popular non-endemic brands by gaming livestreams peak viewership
In terms of singular peak viewerships throughout the year, Samsung reigned supreme with 76.8K Peak Viewers for a PUBG Mobile event featuring popular livestreaming creators. The event was called the #Playgalaxy Cup and hosted as a part of TwitchCon San Diego 2024; it featured popular North American creators like Ludwig, Cinna, and many more.
Red Bull also received 21.4K Peak Viewers for the grand finals of its own Red Bull Kumite 2024 New York esports tournament. The event featured a $50K prize pool for the top Street Fighter 6 players, and Red Bull have been a real trend-setter for brands here. Many other brands have expanded into Street Fighter recently, but Red Bull have been active there with their Kumite series since 2015.
AT&T achieved 18.6K PV for their esports cup series, whereas Amazon’s Prime Video reached 15.2K Peak Viewers for an EA Sports FC event, which was held to advertise their “Road House” movie. Other brands such as Monster Energy, NVIDIA, and SteelSeries reached their peak viewerships with more casual broadcasts, DFB and NASCAR reached their peak viewerships thanks to esports events in their respective industries. DFB reached 8.5K Peak Viewers through a €100K EA Sports FC tournament, and NASCAR reached 6.2K PV with an iRacing race.
Generally, hosting competitive events seemed a more successful way for these brands to draw viewership from gaming, rather than casual broadcasts. On top of this, including established popular streamers, such as in Samsung’s PUBG Mobile event, was an effective method to for reaching high viewership peaks.
Most active non-endemic brands by total gaming livestreams held
In terms of brands which were the most active, not necessarily the most-watched, GOG stood at the top with over 500 broadcasts held throughout 2024. The digital distribution platform for games and movies are constantly holding casual gaming broadcasts featuring creators on their channel. Although these broadcasts are not necessarily achieving high viewership, the brand is highly active in trying to leverage this gaming sphere, and all of these streams add up to a sizeable watch time for the year.
Computer hardware and peripheral brands like NVIDIA, Lenovo, Asus, Corsair, HyperX, Logictech, and Alienware, were all well-represented in this list. These brands are all associated with gaming, even though they are not directly video-game companies, and their entrance into the gaming sphere through livestreaming was an easy step. Nevertheless, although some of these companies are poised for an easy entrance to gaming, not all of them achieved viewership success: such as Logitech and Alienware.
More sports brands, this time Ferrari and FC Barcelona, found their way into the middle of our ranking here, with Ferrari edging out FC Barcelona as the more active brand. Although Ferrari are originally a car manufacturer, their livestreaming endeavours reflect the efforts of their motorsport team to break into the esports side of racing.
The FerrariEsports channel hosts many broadcasts of their team practising, as well as guest hosts from the motorsport industry to feature on stream. FC Barcelona also were largely outside their comfort zone, mostly co-casting League of Legends and Valorant events to their channel. The football team has expanded into these two esports titles with their own teams, competing in the second-tier of European circuits.
Most engaging non-endemic gaming brands in livestreaming
In terms of Average Engagement Rate, audiovisual hardware company Elgato led the top of this ranking with an over 50% Engagement Rate. The German company holds many casual gaming broadcasts on their channel, and they are obviously well-connected to the German gaming community.
Fellow hardware company Western Digital was in second with 41.5%, leading ahead of Red Bull with 34.9% in third place. Western Digital also hosted largely casual gaming broadcasts, although the Swiss Red Bull channel, which received 34.9% engagement, focused more on special gaming events and esports.
In terms of engaging effectively with your audience, casual gaming streams and giveaways appeared to be far more effective than esports broadcasting. On top of Elgato and Western Digital, G Fuel, Corsair, and NZXT, all hosted casual gaming streams on their channels to great success. Utilizing giveaways was key for some of these brands, as it is a natural way to increase engagement rate of a broadcast. Monster Energy achieved a 26.2% Engagement Rate through a mixture of special gaming events, and their own podcast series, UNLEASHED.
Generally, lesser-watched casual gaming streams when a broadcaster could more effectively interact with their audience led to higher engagement rates. Artificial boosting of engagement rates through either Twitch Drops or other giveaways was present here, but largely, the Average Engagement Rate metric reflected organic engagement from passionate communities.
Livestreaming is a critical portal for brands to utilize to connect with younger audiences. Considering the industry’s roots in gaming, expanding into gaming-based livestreaming is a natural step for many of these brands, but not all. From energy drinks companies like Red Bull and Monster Energy to national footballing leagues, livestreaming is an unmissable opportunity for brands to expand their awareness and reach.
