Who's Really Moving The Needle?

February 06, 2025

Linear TV Networks are not the Only Place to Watch Big Live Events

If you were paying attention to the Grammys at all last weekend, you probably saw that that Kai Cenat streamed his entire red carpet experience. It’s refreshing to see some of the traditional events like the Grammys leaning into the livestreaming industry and giving creators like Kai that kind of access.

Kai at the 2025 Grammys

It was very obvious that celebrities like Will Smith, Vybz Kartel, and Muni Long (who even thanked Kai for mentioning her song on stream) knew he was live when they approached him on the carpet. From what I saw, most of them looked at the camera, made a comment about chat, and asked how many people were watching. I think a lot of them went up to Kai because they knew he was streaming to 200K viewers. Like any Kai stream, there were plenty of entertaining moments—including some confrontational ones, like when he called out Complex and Elliott Wilson for things they’ve said in the past.

Will Livestreaming at Traditional Events Become the Norm?

Just one day before, on Saturday the 1st, Kai streamed from ringside at WWE’s annual Royal Rumble event. (If you haven’t seen it yet, you can’t miss Speed’s WWE debut.) It’s been great to see the WWE working with digital creators like Logan Paul while also giving backstage access to livestreamers like Kai and Speed. This hasn’t really been done before—especially with someone who isn’t part of WWE.

Kai’s Livestream POV at WWE Royal Rumble 2025

How Does This Progress?

It’s been clear to me for a while that this was inevitable—livestreaming was always going to become a pivotal part of live events beyond just the broadcast. But I don’t think it stops here. I believe we’ll start seeing livestreamers on the sidelines of college football games and inside the ropes at PGA or LIV golf events. I think this trend will continue, especially if sports leagues find a way to navigate broadcast rights by allowing livestreamers to be part of the event and stream their experience.

Is This a Net Negative or Net Positive For Broadcast Rights-Holders?

Obviously, from my vantage point, I'm incredibly digitally native, so I fully expect this trend to continue.But how would I feel if I owned the broadcast rights for major live sporting events and saw someone on the sideline streaming their POV? I think this is a gray area that still needs to be figured out.

Ouch.

That said, in Kai’s case, many of the 200K people watching his stream likely wouldn’t have tuned into WWE’s Royal Rumble otherwise. They weren’t going to subscribe to Peacock or pay for the event. I’d bet that the majority of his viewers were Kai Cenat fans—people who hang out on Twitch—who were either discovering WWE for the first time or being reminded of it. I’d be willing to say that some of them will now go on to watch another WWE pay-per-view or live event, especially after seeing how exciting the Royal Rumble was.

Also, IShowSpeed now has the most-liked WWE tweet of all time.

This quote from Triple H sums it up well…

You can make an argument that some movie stars... they don't move the needle. You know, some musicians - like we have musicians come in, right? Don't necessarily move the needle. Some do, you know, you start talking about like Travis Scott and [Bad] Bunny and people like that, that just bring incredible eyeballs onto WWE.

Bring in people like IShowSpeed or Kai. They're incredibly popular outside of our world. A lot of their fans are our fans, but outside of our world and being able to bring those people into what we do. What is unique to me about this time frame is there's nothing happening where we're going to people and saying, like, 'Hey, would you like to do this with us? We feel like it could be a good thing for us and for you.'

Triple H

The Big Takeaway…

I think it’s beneficial to have livestreamers cover major events that were traditionally only available on live TV or behind a paywall. But does this expand into live sports? And how will rights-holders feel about creators broadcasting from games—positively or negatively? It’s time we recognize that creators are the ones moving the needle, bringing their audiences to events that they would never have watched in the first place.

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