Kick (service)

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Kick
Type of businessSubsidiary
Type of site
Area servedWorldwide
OwnersAshwood Holdings (33%)
Bijan Tehrani (66%)
ParentEasygo Entertainment Pty Ltd
URLkick.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedOctober 18, 2022; 19 months ago (2022-10-18)
Current statusActive
Native client(s) oniOS, Android, Web

Kick (also known as Kick.com) is a video livestreaming service. It is operated by Kick Streaming Pty Ltd and backed by Stake.com co-founders Bijan Tehrani, Ed Craven and streaming personality Trainwreckstv. Kick was founded in 2022 as a competitor to Amazon-owned Twitch, with a focus on looser moderation and higher revenue shares for streamers.[1][2][3] Kick is mostly known for its 5% revenue charge, as well as its 2023 deals with multiple streamers formerly prominent on Twitch, most notably including chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, Nickmercs, Adin Ross, Amouranth, Ice Poseidon and xQc.[4][1][5]

As of June 2023, Kick averages 235,000 livestreams per day.[4]

History[edit]

The Kick streaming platform had its inception in December 2022. To formalize its operations as a registered company in Australia, Kick Streaming Pty Ltd was established in November of the same year. The sole shareholder of Kick Streaming is Easygo Entertainment Pty Ltd, a company registered just a few months earlier.

Easygo Entertainment is partially owned by another entity, Ashwood Holdings Pty Ltd, with a one-third stake. Notably, Ashwood Holdings is under the complete ownership of Ed Craven, co-founder of Stake.com. The remaining two-thirds of Easygo Entertainment are owned by Bijan Tehrani, the other co-founder of Stake.com. While Kick is not directly affiliated with Stake's co-founders, records indicate that they are the principal shareholders of the company that holds ownership of the streaming site.[6] Some sources also state that American streamer Trainwreckstv could be among the owners of the platform or plays a leadership role within it.[7][8]

Content moderation[edit]

Compared to its competitor Twitch, Kick has looser policies against copyright infringement, hate speech, gambling content, harassment and sexual content, although its community guidelines does prohibit those behaviors, as well as doxing and violent conduct.[1][9] A representative of the website said in March 2023 that the platform was in the process of expanding its moderation efforts and that it did not tolerate hate speech or copyright violations.[1]

Kick's more lenient approach toward content moderation has been praised by critics of Twitch's stricter content policies. It has also attracted controversial content creators to the platform. A New York Times article stated that some of the website's content creators have committed what appeared to be crimes, such as sexual assault and trespassing, while streaming.[10] Other content creators of the platform have had sex while streaming, brandished sex toys at children and made sexual remarks toward underage girls. A banned user of the website once coaxed underage girls to strip while on video calls and distributed their images on Discord.[11] After being banned from Twitch for what the streaming platform called "unmoderated hateful conduct on chat" in 2023, streamer Adin Ross migrated to Kick, where he livestreamed the Super Bowl, scrolled through PornHub and invited white nationalist Nick Fuentes on a livestream.[1][9][10]

Kick has been called "a playground for people to be degenerate" by Kristin Gillespie, a co-founder of the New York-based Right to Unmute, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to combat racism, bigotry and harassment in gaming. She said in May 2024 that Kick has tolerated overly sexual and, sometimes, "predatory behavior" on the platform.[11] Kick streamer Hikaru Nakamura said that the platform was undergoing the same initial journey as other social media websites, including Twitch, which he said was "very much the Wild West" when it started. Nakamura further said that it usually takes time for such websites to adapt.[10]

Kick CEO Ed Craven stated in an interview that "people are realizing [that] the more controversial they are, the more shock factor involved in their content, the more viewers they get, and it can sometimes be a dangerous mix in that regard". He further said that the website was in the process of adapting and deciding what type of content it should consider as acceptable. In response to a late 2023 incident where two Kick content creators were detained by police after one of their employees tried to prevent a female escort from leaving a sexual encounter, Kick updated its guidelines and added a button where users could report rule-breaking content. During the livestream in question, Craven posted laughing emojis in the chat and sent a $500 donation to one of the streamers, who was later released by police without charges.[10]

Gambling content[edit]

Kick, which was founded by gambling industry businessmen Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven, who are also the founders of online casino website Stake.com, has been accused of promoting gambling content to its audience, including underage people, as well as having ties to gambling industry figures and influencers.[12] In 2021, Kick closed contracts of more than $1 million per month with Félix Lengyel and Tyler Niknam to broadcast themselves gambling, sometimes with funds that the website would provide to them.[10]

Kick is a loss leader to Stake. Concordia University assistant professor Andrei Zanescu said that Kick's generous terms of service toward streamers, which only take 5% of its creators' earnings instead of Twitch's 50%, could be explained by the influx of new users that Stake was receiving as the result of gambling streamers who broadcasted themselves on Kick while using the gambling platform.[10]

UCLA Gambling Studies Program co-director Timothy Fong has expressed concerns regarding Kick's lack of transparency over its gambling content. Twitch's former director of creator development Marcus Graham criticized Kick for its lack of transparency around its connections to gambling platforms. He stated that "there are so many red flags present that it is embarrassing watching people who I respect give this platform an ounce of credibility".[12] In 2022, Graham called Kick a "sham" due to its lack of information about its investors.[7]

In order to evade U.S. regulations against gambling, which have made the practice illegal in some states, some American streamers have moved out of the country to broadcast gambling streams on the platform.[10] Nick Kolcheff stated that part of his contract with Kick required him to do gambling content (although a representative of the organization denied that such requirement existed in his contract). Kolcheff stated that he intended to move out of the United States in order to record his gambling streams, since the Stake.com was not allowed to operate in the country.[13]

Craven stated in 2023 that the website intended to decrease exposure to gambling content.[12] He also said that the platform had strong safety controls to block children from being exposed to gambling livestreams, as well as people who live in jurisdictions where gambling is outlawed.[10]

Streaming deals[edit]

  • Trainwreckstv was among the earliest major streaming personalities on the platform.[8]
  • In March 2023 Adin Ross announced he had signed a streaming deal with Kick for an undisclosed amount. Ross claimed that his deal at the time was the largest in streaming history, though denied that it was in excess of $150 million USD.[14]
  • In May 2023, BruceDropEmOff announced that he had partnered with Kick, though the sum of the deal was undisclosed.[15]
  • On June 16, 2023, Kick announced that xQc signed a two-year, $70 million non-exclusive deal to the platform, with incentives that could increase the value of the deal to $100 million. This made the signing of xQc to Kick the largest streaming deal, surpassing Ninja's $50 million exclusivity deal with the defunct Microsoft-owned Mixer, and further surpassing LeBron James' two-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers.[16]
  • On June 19, 2023, Kick signed Amouranth, though the details of her deal were not disclosed.[17][18]

Sponsorships[edit]

In January 2023, the Sauber Motorsport-run Alfa Romeo F1 Team signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with Kick. Kick replaced Stake (Alfa Romeo's title sponsor) in countries where gambling and sports betting advertisements are not allowed as "Alfa Romeo F1 Team Kick".[21][22]

In June, Sauber Esports announced a title partnership with Kick to form "Alfa Romeo F1 Team KICK Esports".[23] Alfa Romeo raced a revised Kick livery called the "disruptive livery" at the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix.[24] Alfa Romeo left the sport after the end of the year, and Kick extended their relationship with Sauber Motorsport, renaming the team to "Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber."[25] The team will go as "Kick F1 Team" in countries with restrictions on promoting gambling, which was previously done with Alfa Romeo's title sponsorship.[26][27] Kick also secured the naming rights to Sauber's 2024 and 2025 chassis, with the 2024 car named as Kick Sauber C44.[28] Additionally, they entered the Formula One Sim Racing Championship with the help of Sauber as KICK F1 Sim Racing Team (although they would enter the first round as Alfa Romeo F1 Team KICK Esports before Alfa Romeo’s departure).

In August 2023, Kick signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with Premier League club Everton as the club's official sleeve sponsor.[29]

User policies[edit]

Registration[edit]

According to Kick's terms of service, users need to be at least 13 years old (in the United States) or 16 years old (in the European Union) to create an account on the website. In order to be able to stream, users need to be at least 18 years old or be in the presence of their legal guardian.[30]

Revenue splitting and salary[edit]

Kick's revenue is split 95% to the streamer and 5% to the platform. Kick's popularity in its revenue split was credited by Forbes for pushing Twitch to introduce a 70:30 revenue splitting model for some creators.[31][32]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e D'Anastasio, Cecilia (3 March 2023). "Twitch's New Streaming Rival Kick Tests Waters of Lighter Moderation". Bloomberg. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  2. ^ Tsiaoussidis, Alex; Richman, Olivia (28 March 2023). "Who owns Kick.com? Fledgling Twitch streaming rival responds to Stake rumors". Dot Esports.
  3. ^ Bennett, Tess (31 March 2023). "Local crypto billionaires use Grand Prix to debut new venture". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  4. ^ a b Browning, Kellen (16 June 2023). "Twitch Star Signs $100 Million Deal With Rival Platform". The New York Times.
  5. ^ Winslow, Levi (6 April 2023). "Former Twitch King Ninja On Mixer's Failure (And Kick's Potential)". Kotaku.com. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  6. ^ "Who owns Kick.com? Everything to know about Stake and Kick". StreamScheme. 6 October 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  7. ^ a b Liao, Shannon (7 December 2022). "Top Twitch creator endorses platform connected to crypto gambling site". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 17 November 2023.
  8. ^ a b ""A New Era of Streaming" - Trainwreckstv Stuns Twitch Supporters With Over $16,000 Income Within 10 Days of Streaming on Kick". EssentiallySports. 11 March 2023. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  9. ^ a b Shah, Saqib (14 August 2023). "What is Kick? Twitch streamers moving to rival platform". Evening Standard. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h Browning, Kellen (2023). "Gambling, Risky Pranks and Lucrative Contracts: Inside the Streaming Site Kick". The New York Times.
  11. ^ a b Begley, Patrick (2 May 2024). "'A playground for degenerates': The dark corners of an Australian streaming giant". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  12. ^ a b c "Influencers flock to platform known for gambling industry ties". NBC News. 28 August 2023. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  13. ^ Parrish, Ash (30 October 2023). "Gambling streams are "part of the contract" for Kick's newest streamer". The Verge. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  14. ^ "Adin Ross signed "biggest streaming deal ever" to join Kick after Twitch ban". Dexerto. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  15. ^ "Kick Signs Yet Another Prominent Twitch Streamer". Game Rant. 1 June 2023. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  16. ^ Browning, Kellen (16 June 2023). "Twitch Star Signs $100 Million Deal With Rival Platform". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  17. ^ "Amouranth joins Kick in shock move away from Twitch". Dexerto. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
  18. ^ "Amouranth Follows xQc's Lead And Leaves Twitch". Kotaku. 20 June 2023. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
  19. ^ "Kick signs Destiny under new 7-figure contract with "two big conditions"". Dexerto.
  20. ^ Castillo, Alejandro; Reidy, Paul (22 August 2023). "Here we Go! Fabrizio Romano signs for Kick". Diario AS. Retrieved 17 November 2023.
  21. ^ Rathore, Nischay (2 February 2023). "Sponsorship Trouble Forces Alfa Romeo to Play the Sneaky Game in 2023 F1 Season". EssentiallySports. Retrieved 9 July 2023.
  22. ^ "New title sponsor Alfa Romeo not visible at every F1 Grand Prix". www.gpblog.com. 11 February 2023. Retrieved 9 July 2023.
  23. ^ Muhammad, Isa (14 June 2023). "Alfa Romeo Joins the Esports Race With Kick Collaboration". BeyondGames.biz. Retrieved 17 November 2023.
  24. ^ Collantine, Keith (24 July 2023). "Alfa Romeo reveal neon green livery changes for Belgian GP". RaceFans. Archived from the original on 24 July 2023. Retrieved 24 July 2023.
  25. ^ "Sauber's new team name unveiled after departure of Alfa Romeo as title sponsor". Formula 1. 15 December 2023. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  26. ^ Brittle, Cian (4 January 2024). "Sauber to alternate F1 team name between Stake and Kick". BlackBook Motorsport. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  27. ^ Lawrence, Dan (5 January 2024). "Sauber to switch between Stake and Kick F1 branding in 2024 and '25". Motorsport Week. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  28. ^ "Streaming giant, Kick.com, secure Sauber Motorsport chassis naming rights for 2024 and 2025". Sauber Group. 15 December 2023. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  29. ^ "Everton Signs Sleeve Deal with KICK". Everton. 1 August 2023.
  30. ^ "What is Kick streaming? What parents need to know". Internet Matters. May 2024.
  31. ^ IV, Antonio Pequeño. "Twitch Introduces 70/30 Revenue Split For Some Streamers Through New Program—With Some Caveats". Forbes. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  32. ^ Hale, James (27 July 2023). "Here's how Kick plans to get profitable". Tubefilter.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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