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Kick (service)
Livestreaming site From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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.[1] Kick was founded in 2022 as a competitor to Amazon-owned Twitch, with a focus on looser moderation and higher revenue shares for streamers.[2][3][4] Kick is mostly known for its low 5% revenue charge, as well as its 2023 deals with multiple streamers including Hikaru Nakamura, Westcol, Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, Nickmercs, Adin Ross, Amouranth, Ice Poseidon, and xQc.[5][2][6] In 2024, Kick.com grew with total hours watched reaching 2.1 billion and average viewership rising to around 258,000.[7] Kick is also the sponsor of the Sauber Motorsport racing team in Formula One.
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Corporate structure
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 on the 14th of November of the same year.[8] The sole shareholder of Kick Streaming is Easygo[9] Entertainment Pty Ltd.[10][11]
In a July 2023 interview, Craven said Kick is not currently profitable. However, the company tentatively plans to become profitable through advertising in one to three years.[12] In March 2025, Kick partnered with data analytics firm Streams Charts to launch the Kick Road Campaign, aiming to support emerging streamers with fewer than 100 concurrent viewers. The initiative offers a $50,000 prize pool, including a $20,000 grand prize for the streamer with the highest watch time.[13] At the same time, Kick Dev opened its public API and introduced a $100,000 developer fund to encourage the creation of third-party tools that enhance the streaming experience.[14]
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Content moderation
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Compared to its competitor Twitch, Kick has looser policies against copyright infringement, hate speech, gambling content, harassment, and sexual content. However, its community guidelines prohibit those behaviors, as well as doxing and violent conduct.[2][15] 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.[2]
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.[16] Other content creators of the platform have had sex while streaming, brandished sex toys at children and made sexual remarks toward underage girls. 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.[2][15][16]
Kick has been called "a playground for people to be degenerate" by Kristin Gillespie, a co-founder of the New York-based Rights 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.[17] 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.[16]
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 Kick was in the process of adapting and deciding what type of content it should deem acceptable. In late 2023, Kick content creators Ice Poseidon and Sam Pepper were detained by Australian police after an incident involving a man they had met earlier that day. They attempted to film the man and a sex worker, both of whom had consented to be filmed, engaging in sexual activity in a hotel room. The situation escalated when the man initially prevented the sex worker from leaving. Following the incident, some streamers considered leaving the platform. In response to the incident and backlash, Kick updated its guidelines, adding a report button for rule-breaking content and introducing regulations on staff participation in "high-risk" livestreams.[16] In late 2024, Kick implemented changes to its gambling policies to address concerns over harmful and exploitative content. Effective February 1, 2025, the platform permits gambling streams only from sites that use ID verification to ensure users are at least 18 years old.[18]
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Gambling content
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Kick, which was founded by gambling industry businessmen Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven, who are also the founders of the 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.[19]
Concordia University assistant professor Andrei Zanescu said that Kick's generous terms of service toward streamers, which only takes 5% of its creators' earnings instead of Twitch's 50%, can be explained by the influx of new users that Stake was receiving as the result of gambling streamers who broadcast themselves on Kick while using the gambling platform.[16]
UCLA Gambling Studies Program co-director Timothy Fong has expressed concerns about Kick's lack of transparency over gambling content. Twitch's former director of creator development, Marcus Graham, also 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".[19] In 2022, Graham called Kick a "sham" due to its lack of information about its investors.[20]
Craven stated in 2023 that the website intended to decrease exposure to gambling content.[19] 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.[16]
In March 2025, Kick updated its monetization policies by removing the partner program payout for streamers in the Slots & Casino category. This change means that gambling content creators, including those streaming on platforms like Stake, are no longer eligible for the hourly pay under Kick's Partner Program.[21] Kick's decision aligns with growing ethical concerns about incentivizing gambling content, especially among younger audiences.[22]
Streaming deals
- Trainwreckstv was among the earliest major streaming personalities on the platform.[23]
- In February 2023, Adin Ross announced he had signed a streaming deal with Kick for an undisclosed amount.[24]
- In May 2023, BruceDropEmOff announced that he had partnered with Kick, though the sum of the deal was undisclosed.[25]
- 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 deal's value 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.[26]
- On June 19, 2023, Kick signed Amouranth, though the details of her deal were not disclosed.[27]
- In June 2023, political commentator Steven "Destiny" Bonnell announced a non-exclusive 12-month partnership with Kick for an undisclosed 7-figure amount.[28]
- In August 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.[29]
- In November 2023, Kick signed Tfue, though the sum of the deal was undisclosed.[30]
- In November 2024, Ilya Maddyson (Ilya Davydov in real life) announced that he had signed a $1 million deal with Kick.[31]
- In August 2024, influence Adin Ross hosted a stream with U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, which attracted significant attention with 580,000 live viewers and over 2.7 million views on YouTube. This event was part of Trump's campaign strategy to engage with younger audiences, with his son Barron reportedly encouraging the outreach to the "manosphere" community.[32]
- In April 2025, Adin Ross disclosed that on Kick, a streamer with 1,000 concurrent viewers can earn approximately $100 per hour, while someone with 50 viewers might make around $10 per hour. He also revealed that he earned $30,000 during a single five-hour stream on Kick, attributing his substantial earnings to the platform's Partner Income program.[33][34]
- UFC fighter Max Holloway streams regularly on Kick, where he engages with the gaming community.[35]
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Sponsorships
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Motorsport
In January 2023, 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".[36][37] Alfa Romeo raced a revised Kick livery called the "disruptive livery" at the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix.[38] 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."[39] 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.[40][41] Kick also secured the naming rights to Sauber's 2024 and 2025 chassis, with the 2024 car named as Kick Sauber C44.[42]
Esports
In June 2023, Sauber Esports announced a title partnership with Kick to form "Alfa Romeo F1 Team KICK Esports"[43] and entered the 2023–24 Formula One Sim Racing World Championship as KICK F1 Sim Racing Team (the team entered the first round as Alfa Romeo F1 Team KICK Esports before Alfa Romeo's departure). KICK F1 Sim Racing Team continues with Thomas Ronhaar and Brendon Leigh for the 2024–25 season following a successful first season.[44]
Football
In August 2023, Kick signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with Premier League club Everton as the club's official sleeve sponsor.[45]
MMA
In October 2024, the UFC partnered with Kick to launch a dedicated streaming channel featuring watchalongs, press conferences, behind-the-scenes content, and fighter interviews.[46][47]
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Policies
According to Kick, streamers on the platform keep 95% of subscription revenue.[48][12]
In late 2024, Kick implemented changes to its gambling policies to address concerns over harmful and exploitative content. Effective February 1, 2025, the platform permits gambling streams only from sites that use ID verification to ensure users are at least 18 years old.[49]
See also
References
Further reading
External links
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