Twitch has made cuts to a program in which it "pays esports teams to stream on the Amazon-owned video platform," according to Tim Peterson of DIGIDAY. The payment reductions are "pushing more teams to post clips of their Twitch livestreams to YouTube in order to make up for the lost revenue and ease their reliance on the game-centric streaming service." The platform continues to "pay some esports teams in exchange for streaming a specified number of hours on Twitch each month." However, in some cases, sources said that it has either "reduced the amount of money that it pays teams or phased teams out of the payment program." It is "unclear how many teams Twitch had been paying," but the payments were a "top-three revenue stream" for some teams. Sources said that Twitch "made these changes in order to focus the payment program on top competitive esports teams." This comes as "many gaming creators and esports teams have already been looking to diversify beyond the platform." Esports teams are "increasingly adopting YouTube as a way to extend their Twitch streams, especially when sponsors are involved" (DIGIDAY.com, 8/28).
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