Twitch’s Sponsorship Program Hits a New Low
Back in December, I covered the launch of Twitch’s Sponsorship Dashboard and its rocky start with below-market-rate offers. At the time, I said the program could be a “massive win-win” if Twitch settled on fair rates. I also warned that if they tried to squeeze creators, the dashboard would go unused.
Well, they found a way to make it worse.
The “Opportunity”
Last week, Twitch emailed Partners multiple times about a new campaign through Twitch Sponsorships. The deal was for Riot Games’ free-to-play fighting game 2XKO, which just launched on consoles.
Here’s what creators were asked to do:
- Stream 2XKO five times for a total of five hours minimum
- Have your channel plastered with promotional skins advertising the game
- Activate bonus gift subs for your community
And here’s what creators get paid: Nothing.
That’s not an exaggeration. There is no payment. The only potential money comes from your community purchasing bundles of five gift subs, at which point Riot adds one bonus gift sub. So to be clear: this “sponsorship” requires your audience to spend money so you might earn a few extra dollars.
Let’s Call This What It Is
This isn’t a sponsorship. A sponsorship is when a brand pays you to promote their product. This is Twitch asking creators to run free advertising for a major game publisher while hoping their communities will subsidise the arrangement.
Riot Games is not a scrappy indie studio. They’re owned by Tencent and have the budget to pay creators properly. The fact that this campaign exists at all, let alone was presented through the Sponsorship Dashboard, is genuinely baffling.
What makes it worse is the framing. The sponsorship dashboard announced this as an “opportunity” with “spots limited” on a “first come, first serve basis.” The urgency was designed to make creators feel lucky to participate.
Riot’s Response
To their credit, Riot acknowledged the backlash in a statement posted to X:
The goal with this campaign was to celebrate 2XKO’s console launch and reward creators who stream 2XKO with bonus gifted subs alongside their communities. It definitely was not intended to replace traditional sponsorships or influencer marketing campaigns, and especially not to devalue creator UGC. We’re working with the Twitch team to build a better solution for future activations so campaigns like these are not presented as a sponsorship.
Aureylian – Riot’s Global Head of Player Community
Translation: this shouldn’t have been called a sponsorship, and they’re working with Twitch to fix how these campaigns are labelled going forward.
That’s a reasonable response, but it puts the blame squarely on Twitch for how this was positioned. The Sponsorship Dashboard is supposed to be where creators find paid work, not community-funded promotional campaigns.
Why This Matters Beyond One Bad Deal
If creators keep accepting these below-market arrangements, it normalises them. Every time someone says yes to a zero-pay “sponsorship,” it makes it easier for platforms and brands to offer the same terms to everyone else.
This is the same pattern we saw with the Sponsorship Dashboard launch, where initial rates were roughly 90% below market value. Twitch was testing the floor. They wanted to see how low they could go before creators pushed back.
The good news is that creators did push back, loudly. The community reaction to this campaign has been overwhelmingly negative, and Riot’s statement suggests they heard it.
What Should You Do?
If you’re a Partner who received this offer: decline it. Select “Pay not sufficient” as your reason. The only way these programs improve is if Twitch sees that creators won’t accept exploitative terms.
If you want to stream 2XKO because you genuinely enjoy it, go for it. Just don’t do it under the pretence that you’re participating in a sponsorship when you’re actually providing free advertising.
Pete’s Content Corner
Delve into my weekly selection of content creation highlights – handpicked videos, podcasts, and tweets that promise to captivate, educate, and entertain.
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- TikTok America is now operating as its own entity following the sale’s finalisation, but the new privacy policy is worth reading carefully. The app now collects significantly more user data, including precise GPS location (previously not collected from US users).
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Thanks, as always, for taking the time to read Stream Report.
Pete ✌️
