Kick, the rival streaming platform to Twitch, has made yet another big splash as it has now replaced Stake as the main sponsor on the Alfa Romeo Formula 1 cars for the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
There have been a few challenges to Twitch’s spot at the top of the streaming mountain, but the Amazon-owned platform has seen pretty much all of them off.
They are having to fight a new battle, though, as the Stake-backed Kick platform has started offering streamers non-exclusive deals to stream on both platforms – with Kick offering them a greater split on subscriber revenue compared to Twitch’s 50/50 offering.
With those signings, and more rumored to come, the Stake-backed platform has made inroads to challenge Twitch’s dominance, but they’re also now actually getting some love on the roads. Well, the roads of the Formula 1 circuits with Alfa Romeo Sauber.
Kick appears as Alfa Romeo F1 sponsor in place of Stake
Kick had previously been announced as a partner with the Italian racing team, but the logo did not appear on the car during the first two races of the 2023 season – Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
However, during the first practice sessions for the Australian Grand Prix, fans couldn’t help but notice that the upstart streaming platform now has pride of place on the car’s rear wing, side pods, and nose.
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“Since when are Kick sponsorships all over the Alfa Romeo?” one asked. “Kick ain’t messing about, they’re sponsoring Alfa Romeo in F1 now,” another added. “Just saw they’re (Kick) a partner of Alfa Romeo. Kick going places,” another commented.
Since when are kick sponsorships all over the Alfa Romeo? pic.twitter.com/INgMQkIWeS
— longman (@ALongmanP1) March 30, 2023
The team has even changed its name from Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake to Alfa Romeo F1 Team KICK, which means the streaming platform is currently the title sponsor of the team. They’ve already referred to this change on their website in the practice debriefs.
While Stake is an Australian company, the change is likely to have been made due to certain restrictions in Victoria – the state in which Melbourne is based – around gambling advertisements. The advertisements are not banned outright, but there are catches, that F1 would fall under for things such as online simulcasts.
Alfa has also started streaming on Kick as well, with their drivers – Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu – talking to fans around the Australian GP.
Don’t expect to see any full-length races being streamed on there anytime soon though.
