Stream Hatchet‘s “2025 Live Streaming Trends Report,” which covers 36.4 billion hours watched across all major platforms, includes several findings with direct implications for brand strategy. Three stand out.
YouTube Gaming Is Becoming the Primary Sponsored Content Platform
Sponsored stream viewership on YouTube Gaming reached 10.8 million hours watched in 2025, a 71% year-over-year increase. At the same time, unique channels on the platform grew 54% to 2.8 million, indicating brands have a larger audience and a broader creator pool than at any prior point.
Notably, the creators driving the most sponsored viewership were not exclusively household names. American streamer TheBurntPeanut led sponsored hours on the platform promoting “ARC Raiders” and “PUBG Battlegrounds,” while Brazilian creator Apelapato generated 683,000 sponsored hours for “Garena Free Fire.” The data suggest that mid-tier creators deliver measurable returns for brands willing to move beyond top-tier talent.
Twitch, meanwhile, recorded its lowest quarterly unique channel counts since 2020, and viewership from its top creators fell 14.5% year-over-year.
Creator-Adjacent Activations Are Generating Outsized Brand Visibility
The report’s Twitch chat data (tracking brand mentions by unique chatters) provides a concrete illustration of how creator events move brand metrics. Crocs generated 26,000 chat mentions in a single day following the reveal of Mafiathon 3-branded shoes during Kai Cenat’s marathon stream, helping propel the brand into the apparel top three for the year on the platform.
Marvel’s performance tells a similar story from a different angle. The brand rose two positions to become the top media brand by unique chatters, with 1.7 million, driven primarily by organic conversation around the “Marvel Rivals” game release rather than a direct streaming campaign. Coca-Cola retained the top beverages position with 1.2 million unique chatters, and Amazon held the retail and e-commerce top spot with 1.5 million, both without recorded rank changes, suggesting those positions reflect sustained brand equity rather than event-driven spikes.
The implication for brand marketers is that creator partnerships structured around culturally resonant moments (product integrations, co-branded merchandise, event sponsorships) can generate chat-level engagement that straightforward pre-roll or display advertising does not.
The Spanish-Speaking Audience Represents a Concrete Spend Gap
The report’s creator and event data consistently point to Spanish-speaking audiences as the fastest-growing and most engaged segment in live streaming.
Ibai’s La Velada del Año V drew 9.2 million peak concurrent viewers, the highest of any creator-led event in 2025. Latin American events Stream Fighters 4 and Supernova Strikers Amigo reached 1.8 million and 2.3 million peak viewers, respectively. On Kick, the two new entrants to the top 10 female streamers list were both Peruvian creators, and the platform’s strongest audience growth is concentrated among Spanish-speaking users.
The brand mention data on Twitch, however, shows no corresponding concentration of brand activity in that demographic. The top brands by unique chatters across every measured category are positioned toward English-language audiences.
For agencies advising clients on live-streaming investments, the gap between demonstrated audience size and current brand spend in Spanish-language streaming is a data-supported case for reallocation, one that this report now quantifies.
Image source: Stream Hatchet Get the full report here
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
Stream Hatchet‘s “2025 Live Streaming Trends Report,” which covers 36.4 billion hours watched across all major platforms, includes several findings with direct implications for brand strategy. Three stand out.
YouTube Gaming Is Becoming the Primary Sponsored Content Platform
Sponsored stream viewership on YouTube Gaming reached 10.8 million hours watched in 2025, a 71% year-over-year increase. At the same time, unique channels on the platform grew 54% to 2.8 million, indicating brands have a larger audience and a broader creator pool than at any prior point.
Notably, the creators driving the most sponsored viewership were not exclusively household names. American streamer TheBurntPeanut led sponsored hours on the platform promoting “ARC Raiders” and “PUBG Battlegrounds,” while Brazilian creator Apelapato generated 683,000 sponsored hours for “Garena Free Fire.” The data suggest that mid-tier creators deliver measurable returns for brands willing to move beyond top-tier talent.
Twitch, meanwhile, recorded its lowest quarterly unique channel counts since 2020, and viewership from its top creators fell 14.5% year-over-year.
Creator-Adjacent Activations Are Generating Outsized Brand Visibility
The report’s Twitch chat data (tracking brand mentions by unique chatters) provides a concrete illustration of how creator events move brand metrics. Crocs generated 26,000 chat mentions in a single day following the reveal of Mafiathon 3-branded shoes during Kai Cenat’s marathon stream, helping propel the brand into the apparel top three for the year on the platform.
Marvel’s performance tells a similar story from a different angle. The brand rose two positions to become the top media brand by unique chatters, with 1.7 million, driven primarily by organic conversation around the “Marvel Rivals” game release rather than a direct streaming campaign. Coca-Cola retained the top beverages position with 1.2 million unique chatters, and Amazon held the retail and e-commerce top spot with 1.5 million, both without recorded rank changes, suggesting those positions reflect sustained brand equity rather than event-driven spikes.
The implication for brand marketers is that creator partnerships structured around culturally resonant moments (product integrations, co-branded merchandise, event sponsorships) can generate chat-level engagement that straightforward pre-roll or display advertising does not.
The Spanish-Speaking Audience Represents a Concrete Spend Gap
The report’s creator and event data consistently point to Spanish-speaking audiences as the fastest-growing and most engaged segment in live streaming.
Ibai’s La Velada del Año V drew 9.2 million peak concurrent viewers, the highest of any creator-led event in 2025. Latin American events Stream Fighters 4 and Supernova Strikers Amigo reached 1.8 million and 2.3 million peak viewers, respectively. On Kick, the two new entrants to the top 10 female streamers list were both Peruvian creators, and the platform’s strongest audience growth is concentrated among Spanish-speaking users.
The brand mention data on Twitch, however, shows no corresponding concentration of brand activity in that demographic. The top brands by unique chatters across every measured category are positioned toward English-language audiences.
For agencies advising clients on live-streaming investments, the gap between demonstrated audience size and current brand spend in Spanish-language streaming is a data-supported case for reallocation, one that this report now quantifies.
Image source: Stream Hatchet
Get the full report here