Kick (service)

Kick was founded on December 1, 2022. Stake.com co-founders Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven are known to be among the most prominent figures in the operations of the site. Sources conflict on whether Tehrani and Craven are the founders, the angel investors, or have another role; some sources also state that American streamer Trainwreckstv is among the owners of the platform or plays a leadership role within it.[2][6][7][8][9]

Kick's revenue split is 95% to the streamer and 5% to the platform, among the most generous in streaming. Kick's split is often compared favorably to Twitch's former 50:50 split between creators and the platform, and less frequently with YouTube taking a 30% cut from live streamers. 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.[10]

Kick has proposed paying all of its streamers hourly if they meet certain conditions; if this proposal is enacted, it would become the first streaming service to do so. Conditions include the streamer being active for at least four hours per day out of thirty days in a month, the streamer being awake and interacting with chat, the streamer having a webcam on their face, and being a legal adult. All content creators on Kick who meet all four conditions would be paid per hour of streaming under the proposal.[11][12]

Trainwreckstv was among the earliest major streaming personalities to attract attention to join the platform. The American streamer, who was banned from Twitch previously for gambling during his streams, revealed to his audience in March 2023, he made $16,000 with 3,500 subscribers from the site within his first ten days streaming on the platform.[9] Trainwreck was also joined by Adin Ross, who revealed on March 1, 2023 he 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.[13]

On March 29, 2023, Kick signed chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura to a non-exclusive deal.[14][15]

In May 2023, BruceDropEmOff announced that he had partnered with Kick, though the sum of the deal was undisclosed.[16][17]

On June 16, 2023, it was 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.[18][19] Two days later, on June 19, Kick signed Amouranth, though the details of her deal were not disclosed.[20][21][22]

On June 27, 2023, the streamer and political commentator Destiny announced a non-exclusive 12-month partnership with Kick for an undisclosed 7-figure amount.[23]

On August 14, 2023, YourRage announced that he had signed an exclusive 2-year deal with Kick for an undisclosed amount and that he would be joining the organisation FaZe Clan.

On August 22, 2023, Kick announced the signing of Italian football journalist Fabrizio Romano. He exclusively streamed his summer transfer window coverage on the platform, including his deadline day show on September 1.[24]

In January 2023, Alfa Romeo F1 Team signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with Kick. Kick's name and logo will replace Stake's (Alfa Romeo's title sponsor) in countries where gambling and sports betting advertisements are not allowed as "Alfa Romeo F1 Team Kick".[25][26] In June, Sauber Esports announced a title partnership with Kick to form "Alfa Romeo F1 Team KICK Esports".[27] Alfa Romeo raced a revised Kick livery called the "disruptive livery" at the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix.[28] In August, Kick struck another commercial agreement in the sports industry, this time signing a multi-year partnership with Premier League club Everton to become the club's official sleeve-sponsor.[29]