Former controversial YouTuber Ian “iDubbbz” Washburn left his Content Cop identity behind to pursue more positive content concepts, including the popular Creator Clash series. But iDubbbz recently admitted that the Creator Clash 2 didn’t go quite as planned — and he took responsibility for what went wrong.
Earlier this week, iDubbbz shared a video called “The Harsh Reality of Creator Clash 2,” where he said he was going to share some sensitive information he hated to admit.
“Despite good fights and a lot of creators sacrificing a lot of time, money, and energy, we lost $250,000 on the event,” he admitted.
To make Creator Clash 2 happen, iDubbbz and other organizers have to pay content creators to participate in boxing matches. This includes flying them out to the location as well as producing and streaming the content.
Unfortunately, after all of this was paid for, iDubbbz found out he wasn’t going to make the money back. In fact, he was $250,000 in debt, meaning they couldn’t even make a donation to the charity the event was promoting.
The Harsh Reality of Creator Clash 2
“I foolishly thought that the success of last year would be a minimum for what we would be able to do this year. But this wasn’t true,” he explained.
They brought on more talent and more creators, which iDubbbz felt would translate for more pay-per-view buys and more fans wanting to tune in. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened, leaving him feeling a lot of “shame.”
“It feels particularly bad because this isn’t like a regular business where it’s just a personal loss,” he said. “All the fighters were hoping their charities would be supported and represented for all their hard work.”
So what went wrong? iDubbbz admitted that his team wasn’t prepared for all of the issues that would arise. This included piracy, meaning a lot of viewers didn’t pay to watch the event. There were between 1.3 million viewers, but most of these people were using piracy sites.
Another big issue was the lack of marketing leading up to the Creator Clash 2. While the content creators had their own followings, the team behind the event didn’t do a lot of marketing to draw in extra viewers. Fans also agreed that there was not a lot of promotion beforehand.
Meanwhile, the team paid more for broadcasting and had a larger arena.
The streaming community also added that the drama with Froggy Fresh earlier this year may have caused some backlash. A lot of people in the streaming community had turned against iDubbbz due to Froggy being dropped from the event as well as other unpopular decisions over the last year.
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