As we know, our man Shaq is always on the lookout for a new business deal or other opportunity to build his own personal empire. This week he stumbled across something that blew his mind, money-wise. Will he jump in? Ummm… probably not.
With his various businesses, commercial sponsorships and TV hosting duties, O’Neal is – by all accounts – worth a really big pile of cash. One of the reasons he’s done (and is doing) so well is that he’s always open to new ideas for businesses and other money-making opportunities. The modern, internet-connected world is full of these opportunities. Including stuff many (including us here at the ShaqFu Radio offices) have barely ever heard of.
One of those interesting, little-known opportunities has to do with online gaming. Yes! Some of the young people (and some not-so-young) involved in various streaming, multiplayer online games actually get paid for their gameplay. Honestly, we’re not sure how that even makes sense, from a business perspective, but there it is…
The big online networks pay some of the best players in the world, just to have the bragging rights over which player is on what game. We’re guessing it’s good marketing, and helps draw lots and lots of new players to any given game and gaming network.
Recently, Shaq got quite the big-money surprise, when he learned of how one gamer – who goes by the online handle of xQc, signed a contract for – get this! – one hundred MILLION dollars to switch networks and go to the “Kick” streaming platform. The deal is a two-year contract, but hey… $50 million a year is a pretty hefty sum to play online video games, right?!?
Just like NBA (and other) professional sports teams looking to put together the best roster they can afford, there’s apparently quite a competition between online gaming systems to attract the best gamers.
The young man known as xQc used to be on the rival “Twitch” platform, but big money talks, so he’s moved over to the Kick network. Who knew? The Twitch network has been the main online game powerhouse lately, but the tide appears to be shifting.
How big is that money? Well, for comparison, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James earns $47.6 million for his annual salary. Of course he makes a lot more when various TV commercials and endorsements.
As for Shaq, he found out about the xQc deal through an interview with the “Full Squad Gaming” podcast. Show hosts asked O’Neal if he knew about xQc’s $100,000,000 deal, and the big man admitted that he had no clue.
Click here to see the video on Twitter
Armed with this new information – about the value of being a world-class online gamer, Shaq of course must have thought this would be his latest big opportunity, telling the podcasters, “They pay him $50,000,000 just to play video games?… So I can watch? Just watch him play video games?…He is in trouble because I’m about to come after him!”
Funny thing is, Shaq could probably set himself up with a nice little contract of his own to play games online with one of the big networks. Just having a name as big as O’Neal on a gaming network would probably bring in tons of new customers. Who wouldn’t want the opportunity to kill off the big man in some online shoot-em-up game?