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Here’s what we have for you today:

• Ninja’s NYE with GameSquare’s Head of Sales, Kyle Stefankiewicz 🎉 

• BLAST takes over Fortnite and Rocket League esports 💥

• OverActive Media makes waves with acquisitions 🌊

🎉 Ninja’s NYE

This New Year’s Eve, Ninja brought back his infamous NYE event from 2019 and took on Ryan Seacrest with what The Verge described as:

"Your dad’s favorite streamer, Ninja, will attempt his best Dick Clark impression (or do the kids only know Ryan Seacrest now?)... The streamer will be live simultaneously on Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. No word on whether he’ll try to floss again."

Back in February 2023, Ninja made waves joining GameSquare as their Chief Innovation Officer. Ninja’s NYE is one of the first activations out of the partnership.

📸 Event Snapshot

• Content Platforms: Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok

• Average Viewership - Twitch only: 12,440 viewers

• Peak Viewership - Twitch only: 18,308 viewers

• Impressions - Twitch only: 4.66M+ impressions

• Duration: 6 hours 15 minutes

• Talent: Ninja & Jess, BasicallyIDoWrk, BeardedBlevins, Berleezy, BlackKrystel, DrLupo, ImDontai, Krystalogy, LEGIQN, and TimTheTatman

• Brand Partners: Domino’s Pizza and State Farm

source: Stream Charts

💬 Chat with GameSquare’s Head of Global Sales

We chatted with Kyle Stefankiewicz, who lead the brand partnership efforts for the event with Domino’s and State Farm joining the party.

“New Year's Eve is one of the most exciting days of the year to connect and reconnect with your friends, family and community.

This New Year's Eve, GameSquare and Ninja created a new tradition to bring his friends, family, community and brand partners together to ring in the new year in a format that that was built for them, a counter to the traditional, linear format that has passed us by.

Over the course of the evening we saw over a half million of his fans show up but it also served as a great backdrop for brands like State Farm to reunite the Gamerhood and Domino's to feed the audiences throughout the night with promotions and giveaways on one their biggest days of the year!

GameSquare plans on continuing to build talent led and branded IP to build on this success over 2024!”

- Kyle Stefankiewicz (GameSquare Head of Global Sales)

👀 Our POV

Transparently, I preface this with the fact that I helped develop the vision and strategy for Ninja’s NYE, so I am a bit biased…

My take: Ninja’s NYE gives Ninja and GameSquare a strong and flexible, annual tentpole event. It offers a ton of creative options for brand integrations while maintaining authentic content that resonates with Ninja’s audience and thus deliver the results GameSquare, Ninja, and their brand partners are after.

From my perspective, Ninja’s NYE 2024 was a great success but ultimately, the success of this event will be judged by it’s longevity as Ninja x GSQ IP.

Final point: Livestream events like this and similar live events like Scump and Tarik’s Watch Parties in Call of Duty and VALORANT, respectively, are massive opportunities for brands to get in front of gamers while they’re deeply engaged for long periods of time. The impression numbers on these events rival that of major events not just in gaming & esports but in traditional sports, as well.
 
- Zach Eller (Private Lobby)

💥 BLAST Takes Over

BLAST has partnered with Epic Games to operate two of the largest esports in the space, Fortnite and Rocket League.

BLAST will lead the charge for Fortnite’s FNCS and Rocket League’s RLCS, the two major leagues in their respective game titles.

⚡ Quick Take

BLAST puts on some of the best events from a spectator standpoint in the industry. Fortnite and Rocket League already have huge player bases of young gamers but with a multi-year deal, BLAST has an opportunity to really grab their attention and create long-term fans of these still growing games.

- Zach Eller (Private Lobby)

🌊 OverActive Media Makes Waves

Toronto-based, OverActive Media has announced it intends to acquire Spanish esports orgs, KOI and Movistar KOI. If the deal goes through, OverActive Media will have a massive roster of teams and brands:

• Toronto Ultra (Call of Duty League)

• Toronto Defiant (Overwatch)

• MAD Lions KOI (League EMEA Championship)

• MAD Lions KOI (League Women & Non-Binary)

• MAD Lions KOI (VALORANT GC)

• Movistar KOI (VCT EMEA)

• Movistar KOI (CS2)

• Movistar KOI (LVP Superliga)

• Movistar KOI (Pokémon)

• Atletico de Madrid (EA FC)

An additional layer that adds a ton of value for OverActive Media is the fact that KOI was founded by and is owned by the famous Spanish influencer, Ibai and former Barcelona soccer player, Gerard Piqué.

👀 Our POV

As esports winter continues, the trend of consolidation in esports follows. Envy merged with OpTic Gaming, NRG acquired CLG, GameSquare acquired FaZe Clan, G2 and Version1 partnered. The list goes on.

My take: All eyes are on these new gaming powerhouses, the question is how will these new machines take advantage of their new found power? I’m excited to see how OverActive takes advantage of the Spanish gaming & esports market that they now have the opportunity to own in a big way.
 
- Justin Palacios (Private Lobby)

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Disclaimer: our views are ours and in no way represent those of our employers.