Kai Cenat‘s first (and maybe last?) Streamer University wrapped with over 719,000 peak concurrent viewers, 27+ million total hours of watch time, and major streaming companies apparently trying to woo him into taking the program to their platforms instead.
The three-day creator bootcamp was streamed live from the University of Akron in the much-be-memed Ohio, with 150 up-and-coming streamers–handpicked by Cenat–attending in person for lectures from established pros. While only those creators were allowed to attend in person, Cenat streamed from the event, and all attendees were permitted to stream, giving the entire internet a glimpse of the education they received.
Classes, taught by “professors” like DDG, ChrisnNxtDoor, Agent 00, and Duke Dennis, covered four areas of our industry: Content Creation 101, Audience Growth, Monetization, and Tech & Tools.
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And the internet obviously thought this was worth tuning in for: Per Twitch Tracker, content related to the Streamer University event was streamed across nearly 1,000 different Twitch channels from May 21-27, with average concurrent viewership of ~160,000. Viewership hit peak on the event’s launch and final days (May 22 and May 25) with ~719,000 and ~716,000 people, respectively.
According to The Times of India, Streamer University’s top broadcasters included:
- DDG, who brought in 3.57 million unique viewers
- Ray, with 1.73 million viewers (and 71 hours of streaming time over the weekend)
- Cenat himself, with around 1.5 million viewers (despite only streaming for ~5.5 hours during the event)
- Rakai, with 1.46 million viewers and 45 hours streamed
- and Wendy Ortiz, with 1.35 million viewers and 50 hours streamed
(Again, this is just on Twitch. Over on YouTube, Cenat racked up millions more views.)
Top clips from Streamer U are a mix of in-class snippets and what we would consider pretty typical college resident behavior: chilling in the dorms, skipping class, drinking to excess, etc.
The inaugural class wrapped up with an award ceremony, giving 23 nods to students for their good (and bad…) behavior. Here are all the winners:
- Most Improved – Corey2u
- Biggest Flirt – Deshae Frost
- Master of Mentorship – Markus King
- Engagement Guru – ExtraEmily
- Most Honourable – GG Twins
- Social Butterfly – India Love
- Best Group – Hoodbabies
- Class Clown – Reggie
- Rising Star – DannyBans
- Community Builder – Ojay Suave
- Most Consistent Streamer – Funnymike
- Hidden Gem – Allison
- Class Duo – Wendy & Evelyn Ortiz
- Heart of the Community – Caiuwus
- Steady Growth Award – Tbvnks
- Cleanest Room – Chicklet and Maleni
- Worst Behaviour – Rakai
- Best roommates – Ray and Tota
- School Spirit – Yonna
- Prankster – Kanklive
- Best Professor – DDG
- MVP – DDG
- Valedictorian – Tylil James
Now that Streamer U is officially over, there’s time for a little postmortem. It’s clear from viewership stats that the internet was keen to watch, but Cenat still isn’t sure whether he’ll do a second edition. He complained about receiving backlash over some of his attendee selections, and there was also his decision to have Drake give the closing speech.
Cenat noted too that Streamer University may have been free for students, but it wasn’t cheap to put on, and he felt like “no matter which way I try to make sure things is good, I always get the bad end of the stick.”
And you might think that getting interest from streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video (which, of course, previously paid $100 million for MrBeast‘s Beast Games, and renewed it for two more seasons) would intrigue him, but Cenat made it clear on stream that he’s not interested in taking their money.
“One thing I learned with this shit, bro…A lot of people been talking about how this shit should be on Netflix, or Amazon Prime should buy this, Tubi should buy it. Somebody higher and they do it crazy,” he said on a recent stream. “We already been getting talks with different people.”
He didn’t clarify whether those specific companies definitely were in talks or made offers, but he told viewers that because Streamer University is “so original,” he wants to keep control of it and keep it on Twitch.
“I want y’all to learn something,” he said. “Y’all channels, and who you are as a person, this y’all idea, this is your guys’ stuff. Treat your platform as you would treat other platforms. Shout out to all these big platforms, they have subscriptions, bro. Twitch, I think of it all like this: If you gonna sub up, you gonna get some good shit. Y’all have the opportunity to make y’all platforms as big as other platforms.”
So, if there is a Streamer University 2 in the future, sounds like it’s going to be on Twitch.
