MR. TITO: Can Zelina Vega Survive as a Twitch Streamer? Submitted by Mr. Tito on 11/19/2020 at 08:30 AM
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Right now, the WWE is in a unique situation with its MIDCARD wrestling talent... These MIDCARDERS are reportedly on the older contracts, before the AEW exit threat caused more guaranteed money in WWE contracts, and they are seeking Third Party services such as Twitch, YouTube, Cameo, etc. to make supplemental income due to the WWE not touring this year. In the past, wrestlers would complete the value of their contracts by working X amount of shows and also receiving bonuses from live show gates. Thanks to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, WWE has not held a LIVE show since early March 2020.
HOWEVER - Within these MIDCARD wrestlers' contract are clauses about the WWE controlling all media appearances and intellectual property. WWE owns the wrestlers' names but they also own their likeness during the terms of their "independent contractor" contracts. Moving forward, wrestlers are to alert the WWE about using these services and any income generated will reportedly count towards their WWE downside guarantee. Petty, yes, but contracts signed are supposed to be upheld or otherwise, more wrestlers would go rogue on revenue seeking opportunities.
Zelina Vega was terminated for her refusal to abide by her WWE Contract. WWE repeatedly asked her to close the Twitch account and she refused. Then, she opened an OnlyFans account to defy the WWE and that reportedly resulted in her termination. NOT her "I believe in unionization" Tweet, which she made after she was terminated.
Thus, that is the hill that she allowed her WWE career to die on... A few weeks ago, CM Punk dared any wrestler to defy the WWE and continue using these Third Party services. Well, we now have our answer... If you are a MIDCARD talent and you push the boundaries of the WWE's policies, they'll let you go. DO YOU HEAR THAT any disgruntled WWE MIDCARDERS? Push the limits of that policy and you can be freed of that WWE contract.
The question is this... How much did Zelina Vega earn during 2020 and how much can she potentially earn on Third Party services? Vega primarily uses Twitch and sometimes posts videos on YouTube. To answer the question about Third Parties, I'm going to do some research but I'll also relay some experiences that I have talking with Twitch video gaming speedrunners from the past.
For one, let's discuss what Zelina Vega was potentially earning from the WWE... From Sportekz.com, they reported an annual salary for Vega at $150,000 for 2020. However, I'm also seeing reports that she earns between $500,000 to $1,000,000. It's very likely that her advertising endorsements could be added on top of her possible base salary of $150,000? Without having access to WWE's paystubs and HR Department, I cannot definitively know. It's fair to say $500,000 is a reasonable payout for a given MIDCARD female talent when shows are happening. Probably much less for COVID-19 2020 when touring no longer happens.
Zelina Vega primarily uses Twitch as her primary platform though I can imagine that her OnlyFans account could present opportunities too. Twitch is a video game streaming service in which you, as the gamer, play video games that is broadcasted for anyone to watch via streaming video. Very simple... From my past experience, I follow gamers who are either trying to Speedrun a game to achieve World Records (Super Metroid, any Mega Man game, any Mario Game, any Zelda game, etc.) or are personality based... Meaning, that they are primarily good at video games but it's their interaction with their viewers and hilarious personality that draws people in.
Here is how you can earn an income via Twitch TV:
(a) - Subscribers. There is a difference between followers and subscribers on Twitch. Followers just "like" an account and it alerts the user to when a performer is streaming. Subscriptions are financial investments into a channel on a monthly basis. Users can pay $4.99, $9.99, or $24.99 and in return, ads no longer run when watching this particular player and usually, they give you special tiers of character icons to use in chat.
There is also a way to "Gift Sub", meaning that a single user can buy subscriptions and literally just hand them out to other users for a month. Same prices above apply, although someone would be NUTS to hand out $24.99 gift subs.
Linking Amazon Prime accounts, on a monthly basis, is also a way to generate income for Twitch performers. However, the users must do this on a monthly basis. This acts like a $4.99 subscription.
Twitch splits the Subscription revenue 50/50 with the performers.
(b) Ad Revenue. Twitch runs ads on most channels and once you achieve a certain level of viewership, you can obtain some ad revenue towards yourself at about $0.002 per impression and if your viewership is strong, reportedly $0.01.
(c) Twitch bits - Users can purchase bits from Twitch at a reported cost of $1.40 for 100 "bits" (though the price may have gone up since the number I'm using). You can use these "bits" to give to any Twitch streamer. For example, I could buy 100 bits and give 50 of them to Zelina Vega during her stream. Reportedly, each bit translates into 1 cent of revenue for the streamer. Thus, she'd earn $0.50 from me.
There are side hustles (using that term loosely) that Twitch streamers can have to make additional income:
(1) PayPal donations. Most Twitch performers advertise their PayPay accounts to allow users to make donations and they'll read their messages, attached with the donations, on the air.
(2) Patreon. Patreon is a donation service where the users can invest in a content creator. Usually, there are special tiers that will grant you additional access levels to obtain exclusive content from that creator.
(3) Social Media influencers. Popular streamers often have a bigger following on Social Media somewhere. From there, the streamers can sell other things or advertise other things.
(4) Selling merchandise. They'll have a side online store to buy shirts, hats, cups, etc of the gamer.
(5) YouTube for Clips of streams. Many streamers will clip up "best of" moments and post them on YouTube for double dipping. Some will stream on YouTube, too, though it's not as lucrative and you'd need Super Chats to happen to really drive up revenue there (YouTube takes about 30% cut of that revenue). There are new subscription tiers that have been added to users by YouTube as well.
With THAT out of the way, let's attempt to calculate what "the artist formerly known as" Zelina Vega makes on her Twitch streaming account. For much of my analysis, I'm utilizing TwitchTracker.com for statistics. According to them, Zelina has:
14,106 paid subscribers
- 14,068 Tier 1 paying $4.99 per month
- 25 Tier 2 paying $9.99 per month
- 13 Tier 3 paying $24.99 per month
Noting that Twitch receives a 50/50 cut of Follower revenues, at this rate, she could be making $35,386.97 PER MONTH and on an annual basis, a whopping $424,643.60 from Follower Revenue alone!
Holy cow...
But is that sustainable? The majority of her Subscriptions are (a) paying just $4.99 per month and (b) are GIFTED Subscribers at 12,802. What is a gift subscriber, you ask? It is when an existing Subscriber decides to pay extra money and buy 1 month subscriptions for random users. These will expire in 1 month unless the user, themselves, subscribes or if the generous subby decides to throw out more gift subs. It is very apparent that Zelina has a handful of wealthy fans throwing money around because WITHOUT the Gift Subs, she'd only have 2,024 subscriptions.
And just those 2,024 subscriptions would net her much less revenue and she'd only receive $5,242.38 or annualized at $62,908.56. Yikes!
In other words, Zelina, be KIND to your loyal subscribers. Without those Gift Subscriptions, you're in deep trouble.
What about Ad Revenue? Her viewership numbers aren't exactly large... At most, she averages just less than 400 viewers per stream. While that has increased recently thanks to recent WWE release attention, we're looking at just under 500 viewers per show. That's not good and won't generate Ad Revenue. Thus, I'm calling this one "insignificant".
I can assume that the Twitch Bits are low because of the lower viewership and money potentially being spent on following Zelina. I'll call this "insignificant" as well.
She also has a Donate button... That probably fluctuates from time to time.
In other words, Zelina's revenue from Twitch is mostly Subscriber based and if she can't keep above 10,000 viewers, her revenues will significantly decline.
And keep in mind, too, that Twitch doesn't pay your taxes. Thus, she'll have to report her own taxes on her own, potentially have to hire an accountant. Isn't that ironic? You had to do the same as an "independent contractor" for WWE and now you'd have to do the same as a Twitch streamer.
Can she, now that she's no longer a WWE personality and CANNOT be called "Zelina Vega", retain these Subscriber numbers is anyone's guess. She is a very attractive human being and there is a market on Twitch for that. Hot females playing games does attract attention and the ones who flirt with the viewers make more. Isn't that ironic? Myself and even Virtue from NoDQ.com have been beating the table lately on how SEX SELLS and how both WWE & AEW won't admit or book that? Pushing your female talent as sex symbols will bring in casual viewers but the recent push for Corporate Political Correctness won't allow that. And here we have Zelina Vega potentially being able to cash in on her beauty to still make a sustainable living on Twitch.
And then she could really cash in with her sexuality on OnlyFans.com. It's a place where users can pay between $4.99 per month and up to $49.99 per month to see exclusive content by Zelina Vega. What she posts there is her choice... She could keep it clean or she could go the Tammy Sytch route (formerly known as Sunny in WWE) with a more adult themed channel. It is OBVIOUS that Zelina Vega knows that she's making a killing on Subscriber revenue on Twitch that it could translate into easy OnlyFans income.
Her YouTube channel is insignificant... Her views are too low and YouTube (or Google) is really tight on content right now. If she were to ever Stream on YouTube, she could only make money on the Super Chats which can vary and a good friend told me that YouTube takes about 30% cut of that revenue. However, the key to Super Chats is actually paying attention to them and reading them on the air for good customer service.
IN CONCLUSION - If Zelina Vega wants to make good money off of Twitch (and OnlyFans) for the rest of her life, she needs to keep that Subscriber base strong AND convince many of her loyal fans to either (a) keep paying more and/or (b) keep creating Gift Subscriptions for others. Otherwise, she'll have to increase the QUALITY of her broadcasts to pump up the viewership count.
As you can see, it can be a nice CHUNK OF CHANGE potentially for a MIDCARD talent in need for additional revenue...
But is it sustainable?
And is it worth getting terminated from the WWE to do it?
And why are wrestlers so focused on their Third Party accounts instead of focusing more creative energy on improving their in-ring abilities, their promos, how they are portrayed on television, etc?
Or is it that HOPELESS in the WWE?
So just chill... Until the next episode!
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