Ibai Llanos has again broken records with his third edition of La Velada del Año this past Saturday with 3,499,999 peak viewers. This is the highest viewership ever held by a single channel on Twitch; the last record was also held by Ibai himself, hit during the second edition of this event last year.
La Velada del Año, directly translated as “The Night of the Year,” has proven to be just that, year after year. The event sold out the 60K capacity Civitas Metropolitano, the stadium home to Atletico de Madrid, in minutes. The event featured six boxing matches between popular Spanish-speaking live-streaming creators. There were even concerts by musical performing artists in the Flamenco, Flamenrock, and Spanish Urban genres.
All of these combined created La Velada del Año 3, the highest viewership event in Twitch’s history, increasing by 1.73x the viewership from La Velada del Año 2 celebrated in 2022.
So, what does this mean to the live-streaming industry? Well, a big deal. The AMA (average minute audience) for the event was 2.9M viewers, plus 60K people attending the event IRL. The possible exposure for the sponsors of the event could have not been higher than in any other live-streamed event.
How “Alsa” Capitalized on a Prime La Velada Brand Spot
Out of all the activations, we want to highlight one specific brand, Alsa, which executed some creative activations during the night and received one specific mention by Ibai himself when the viewership hit its peak.
Alsa is a Spanish mobility company focused primarily on bus transportation and was one of the sponsors of La Velada del Año III. The first important activation from Alsa was when Ibai arrived at the event on a bus from the 1920s approximately 45 minutes into the event. The bus had Alsa branding and the appearance lasted 1 minute and 10 seconds, generating 1.5M impressions.
The second moment was at the end of the first fight, one of the highest points of the night based on peak viewers (around 3.4M) and when the record for the highest viewership was broken. At the end of the fight, Ibai himself spoke about the celebration of Alsa’s 100 years of service and announced a discount for young people that want to travel during the summer. The timing could not have been more right since this entire activation, which lasted 1 minute and got 3.4M impressions.
As non-gaming events, especially driven by the creators themselves, continue to grow on Twitch and other live-streaming platforms, brands need to start taking notice of the potential opportunities for exposure. Sponsorship of these events, as well as individual creators, is accessible for brands of all types, not just gaming-adjacent brands.
Download our Brands in Live Streaming Report to learn more about these activations and how your brand can capitalize on the live streaming industry:
