Twitch streamer Kai Cenat could bring new viewers to women’s sports in streaming collab

The GIST: The sports world is hungry to attract a Gen Z and Gen Alpha audience, and one way to do that may be partnering with Twitch streamers like Kai Cenat. Cenat, who’s already making headway in the NBA and sneaker space, pulls historic streaming numbers from young audiences, offering a whole new demo to women’s sports leagues. Genius.

Kai Cenat: The 22-year-old — Twitch’s most-subscribed streamer — uploads comedic unscripted content (think pranks and dares), often live-streamed on YouTube and Twitch. The 2023 and 2024 Streamer of the Year has even been credited for coining and popularizing Gen Z slang terms such as “rizz” and accidentally incited a riot during an NYC giveaway last August.

• From a sports angle, Cenat participated in February’s NBA All-Star Weekend as a friend of Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown, and has featured pro women’s basketball player Digna Strautmane on his stream multiple times, including in a 1-on-1 match.

Collabs and results: Last month, Cenat invited actor Kevin Hart and comedian Druski over and streamed their interactions, which drew a record 721.7K concurrent viewers. On July 4th, Cenat streamed a fireworks special with MrBeast, one of the world’s most successful YouTubers, and saw a peak of 457.4K concurrent viewers.

• The holiday stream was last week’s most popular Twitch broadcast, bringing 3x the viewers of a stream of the U.S. presidential debate to the platform.

The sports connection: Earlier this year, Cenat made history as the first streamer to be signed by Nike, which has predominantly focused on inking pro athletes. While Cenat has dabbled in gaming on his streams, he doesn’t compete in esports.

• Women’s sports leagues have leveraged Twitch in the past, with the NWSL and WNBA previously streaming live games on the platform. Both leagues now have expansive streaming deals with Amazon, which acquired Twitch for $970M in 2014.

• Getting NWSL and WNBA viewers to switch to Twitch for post-game breakdowns would be worth it for creators, who still earn revenue from viewers tuning in from Prime platforms.

Zooming out: With Gen Z primed to be fans of women’s and men’s basketball and WNBA fans tending to be diverse and tech-savvy, a WNBA-Cenat collab would be a slam dunk. Women’s leagues and teams have successfully leveraged Instagram and TikTok influencers, and joining forces with Twitch creators could be the next step for leagues — and their brand partners — to reach and engage with Gen Alpha.

• Of the top Twitch streamers, 90% are male, and the audience is 73.1% male — a market in line with women’s sports’ significant male fandom. Anecdotally, it seems many Cenat fans became Strautmane fans after a few streams. The only question is, who’s got next?