Opinion: Switch To Twitch Will Be A Massive Loss For The PWHL

If the PWHL chooses a permanent switch to Twitch as their online streaming platform, it will come with a loss of viewership and fan potential, and tie the league to a platform known for women streamers facing sexism.

If you followed fan boards and online platforms this weekend, it was clear, fans were not happy with the switch to Twitch for the PWHL's online streaming platform of choice. It was poorly communicated, and came without a publicly given reason.

Twitch has been used by leagues before like the National Women's Hockey League and National Women's Soccer League. The problem is, use of the platform is often associated with a stage of professional sports broadcasting where the league utilizing Twitch is struggling to become professional, not an already established league with professional broadcasting standards.

The real loss for the PWHL and the league's current, future, and potential fans, is in accessibility and reach.

Twitch averages roughly 36.7 million monthly users, which is nothing to sneeze at. YouTube? 2.5 billion. Yes, that's billion with a "B". That's 68 times more users frequenting YouTube than Twitch. Sacrificing 2.46 billion potential viewers is...a choice.

When you look at demographics, the issues intensify. Men are the primary demographic for Twitch, with women accounting for only 35% of Twitch users. When you look at YouTube, that number climbs to nearly 46% women.

Of Twitch's users, roughly 40% are under the age of 24, and more than 70% are under 34, which is perhaps due to the trend of younger generations watching video game streamers, which is Twitch's primary market.

Within this however, Twitch has been a known space to house open misogyny. As journalist John Katzowitz wrote about women's involvement in the platform, "Many, if not most, of the women who broadcast themselves on Twitch seem to face sexual harassment, verbal harassment, and sometimes physical harassment. Every female Twitch streamer I’ve interviewed has been harassed. Men try to get them in trouble with the platform by eagerly reporting potential rules violations, and others serve up videos on Reddit that could be considered revenge porn. Some women are continually called derogatory names. Others are ostracized because they’re playing video games in what some believe is a man’s world (or, maybe more accurately, a boys’ club)."

In many ways, it sounds like the history of sexism facing women, and the exclusion of women to preserve hockey as a man's space. As many women reported in an article by The Independent in 2024, they commonly face threats of sexual and physical violence, doxxing, and sexist comments while engaging on Twitch.

As Dr. Courtney Szto, who is renowned for the research in hockey wrote in a 2019 article titled "Popular feminism meets popular misogyny?" looking at the NWHL's choice to broadcast on Twitch, "The parallels between toxic masculinity in sports and gaming is actually eerily similar..." and those 

It's not only the history of the space that brings the move, whether temporary or permanent by the PWHL, into question. If the league is looking to monetize these "free" streams, YouTube tops Twitch again when looking at Cost Per Mille.

So why is the PWHL doing this?

It's confounding. The league itself used their YouTube success as a bragging point following year one. A May 8, 2023, PWHL press release stated "The PWHL also saw a 2,557% increase in YouTube subscribers throughout the season to reach over 100,000 total subscribers and more than 40 million views. Viewers tuned in from 88 different countries."

In a way, it's back to the future for women's hockey. Yet there are differences. In 2019 when the NWHL announced a three-year pact with Twitch, it came with a 50-50 revenue share from anything generated through the platform to players. The PWHL's current collective bargaining agreement does not give players a share of media rights and revenue, on any platform.  

In Szto's article, the Queen's University professor asked a question that is important to ask again: "There will be many eyes on the NWHL, that’s for sure. But are they the kind of eyes that we want on women’s hockey in this crucial moment?"

Although the league stated they were testing new platforms with the three games slated for Twitch less than 10 days into the second PWHL season, a potential reasoning for the switch is that Twitch is a subsidiary of Amazon, and the league will broadcast their Tuesday night games this season on Amazon Prime. 

Regardless, if the league hopes to expand and attract new fans, they need to make it easier for fans to experience their product, not more difficult. Skipping steps will not support the longevity of this league, and if this move becomes permanent, it should ring alarm bells for the Players' Association. It is after all, a Players' Association guided by athletes who would not merge with the NWHL for less than professional aspects of their business model at the time...including broadcasting or lack thereof. 

The immediate reaction from fans was negative. The games instantly became less visible, less accessible, less user friendly, with less revenue potential, and a vastly smaller potential audience on the platform.

For women's hockey fans, this move will certainly make more than a few eyes twitch.