China’s esports streaming heats up as Douyin draws top IP and talent

Header photo source: League of Legends via Instagram.

On the night of November 2, the 2024 League of Legends World Championship wrapped up its climactic final match. The energy was palpable as Li Xiaolong, founder of the game streaming guild Feijing Huyu, watched with his team, eyes locked on the screen. In a performance that left esports fans buzzing, Korean esports star “Faker” seized his fifth championship title, setting a new standard in competitive gaming.

Almost immediately, clips capturing Faker’s victory began to trend on Douyin, where more than 3.2 million users tuned in. But it didn’t stop there. By the following Saturday, headlines suggesting Faker’s struggle with depression, potentially due to the relentless pressure of competition, stirred further discussion. S14 might have ended, but on Douyin, interest in Faker and the championship lingered, fueling a continuous loop of engagement around esports.

With a rising demand for content, traffic on streaming and social platforms surged. Leading the wave were the industry’s top streamers—those who command legions of followers. Up until 2023, these influencers primarily broadcasted on platforms like Douyu and Huya. But recently, Douyin has drawn them in with targeted efforts to capture a bigger piece of the gaming audience. The list of recruits reads like a who’s who of esports: Xuxu Baobao, Zhang Daxian, and Chen Ze have all joined Douyin’s ranks.

Industry veteran Li Jiujiu noted that Douyin’s deals with prominent streamers like Zhang notably excluded upfront signing bonuses—a once-standard, often substantial one-time payout that platforms like Douyu and Huya historically used to attract top talent. Before, the most sought-after streamers could expect to negotiate eight-figure RMB deals. Now, though, it’s Douyin’s vast user base and diversified revenue streams that are drawing streamers in, signaling a shift away from the cash-heavy contracts that previously defined the industry.

In January, Zhang, previously a major Honor of Kings streamer on Huya, made his Douyin debut alongside his esports team, XYG. The event was massive, with over 47.2 million viewers and more than a billion likes, nearly doubling Zhang’s peak viewership from his days on Huya.

Li Xiaolong, reflecting on the shift, highlighted Douyin’s multiple income avenues beyond the standard tipping model that Douyu and Huya rely on. With options like cost per time (CPT), cost per action (CPA), cost per sale (CPS), and digital gifting, Douyin presents streamers with an array of monetization paths.

This approach has also caught the attention of high-profile players like Faker. In June, he appeared on League of Legends’ official Douyin channel to promote his “Hall of Legends” skin, racking RMB 21 million (USD 2.9 million) in sales in under five hours—a figure he’d typically earn over six months.

Li explained Feijing Huyu’s own transition from Huya to Douyin: “You can’t make money on Huya anymore,” he said, “but Douyin, that’s a different story.”

However, Douyin’s venture into esports streaming hasn’t been entirely smooth. During S14, Feijing Huyu’s Douyin channels experienced a traffic drop of more than a third, with much of that viewership gravitating toward the official championship channel. Currently, Douyin lacks the rights to stream S14 directly, and in esports, content rights can make or break a platform. The challenge of securing licenses has consistently posed a hurdle for Douyin’s esports ambitions.

ByteDance’s 2021 acquisition of Moonton Technology—a move widely seen as a power play in esports—illustrates this point. Moonton’s flagship game, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, dominates Southeast Asia’s MOBA game scene and its competitive events. Yet, ByteDance’s gaming division has faced turbulence, with recent rumors suggesting Moonton could be up for sale.

Meanwhile, Tencent has kept a firm grip on its prized gaming IPs, including a longstanding restriction on Douyin streaming for games like Honor of Kings. This dynamic began to shift in early 2024 when ByteDance and Tencent made moves to ease tensions, granting Douyin limited access to certain IPs. However, Tencent still withholds the rights for Douyin to stream Honor of Kings esports tournaments.

In January, the official Weibo account for Honor of Kings announced that Douyin streaming would fully open for the game, allowing Zhang’s return. Around the same time, Tencent’s Game for Peace also launched its esports events on Douyin, strengthening the platform’s ties to Tencent’s flagship games.

Tencent’s high-profile release this year, Delta Force, went live on October 10. Three months before the launch, Douyin had already begun fostering content around the game, and now has exclusive streaming rights for its global all-star tournament—a broadcast that peaked with 60 million viewers.

As China’s esports market continues to mature, it has taken on a tiered structure: licensing and IP rights at the top, tournaments and teams in the middle, and streaming and shortform content at the base. With recent progress on securing IP rights, Douyin is now venturing into mid-tier esports organizing. Throughout 2024, the platform hosted several events, including January’s PEL series with Game for Peace, a June CS tournament in collaboration with Perfect World Esports, and July’s Honor of Kings invitational with Zhang.

Douyin’s expanding esports presence highlights its growing strength in both content creation and event hosting, fortifying its position in China’s downstream and midstream esports landscape.

To cement this shift, Li has invested over RMB 2 million (USD 280,000) in launching an esports academy. He’s betting on the enduring value of top players: “Even a random King Pro League (KPL) player has a transfer fee of over RMB 30 million (USD 4.2 million).”

But the path to professional esports is narrow, with the odds stacked at about one in 120,000—a sobering reality. Li agreed with that assessment.

So what about the others? “They can join my streaming team,” he said with a grin.

KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Lan Jie for 36Kr.