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Magic: the Gathering tournaments are the bread and butter of many local game stores. They grow your community of players and help you sell boosters and singles to a captive and eager customer base. What’s not to love?

But why stop there? Technology has made it easier than ever to get your events online and share them with a wider audience. Streaming Magic: the Gathering tournaments online is a great way to take your events to next level.

Here are five reasons you should seriously consider streaming your events online.

#1 Streaming builds your reputation

Streaming your tournaments gives you a chance to showcase how you run your business and organize events. When you run a good event, your players and customers talk. They tell their friends. A reputation as a good tournament organizer can be invaluable when it comes to building up your business. Magic players will travel a long way to go to an event they know will be run by someone they trust.

Streaming serves two functions here. The fact that your streaming the event makes that event more exciting. Feature matches, being on camera, and the whole spectacle adds a ton of value to what would be just another PPTQ or whatever event otherwise. Having a legitimate stream set up with commentators making the action on screen more interesting shows that your game store is serious about running events.

Secondly, you can reach more players online than you can in person. Streaming events is a form of marketing that can reach customers that may never have heard of you before. Your stream may be the feature that convinces a customer to come to you for their gaming fix instead of someone else.

#2 It’s another marketing channel

As I alluded to in the last point, streaming is a form of content marketing. You already use your Magic events as a kind of marketing, by adding a stream on top you are adding a force multiplier to your efforts. And not only that, streaming is still a very uncrowded channel.

Nearly every local game store on the planet has a Facebook page and Twitter account and is fighting for their customer’s attention on those platforms. It’s very crowded in social media land. Streaming on websites like Twitch.tv, YouTube, and now Facebook Live are like Facebook and Twitter in the early days. It’s easy to stand out and be one of the best just because there aren’t that many doing it yet.

#3 Streaming can be another source of revenue

Beyond just increasing your brand presence for your business, a quality stream can also be monetized directly. Twitch.tv’s Partner Program is an easy way to turn your stream viewers into top line revenue. You can turn on ads for your stream and earn a share of the ad revenue generated and you have the option of allowing your viewers to subscribe directly for a fee each month.

From the Twitch.tv website:

As a Twitch Partner, you gain access to features such as:

  • Monetize Your Content: As you use Twitch to grow your audience, you’ll also earn a share of the revenue generated from all broadcasts on your channel! Partners can determine the length and frequency of mid-roll advertisements through their dashboards.
  • Channel Subscriptions: Twitch Partners can earn even more revenue through channel subscriptions. If you choose to enable this feature, viewers can purchase a monthly subscription to your channel in exchange for access to special perks such as:
    • Custom Chat Badges
    • Custom Emoticons
    • Access to Subscriber-Only Chat
    • Exclusion from Slow Mode
    • Unrestricted Access to Broadcast Archives
    • Unrestricted Access to Video Quality
    • Ad-Free Viewing Experience

Encouraging subscribers is an excellent way to monetize your stream and reward your regular viewers with extra privileges. In order to become a Partner you have to fulfill a few basic requirements. Specifically, your stream has to average around 500 concurrent viewers and you have to broadcast at least 3 times per week.

This may be a challenge initially but if you’re consistent and put out good quality, your viewership will rise.

#4 Streaming is content

Content has become a bit of a buzzword lately. Content is all about giving value, either through knowledge like what you’re getting from reading this particular article, or entertainment.

Streaming a Magic tournament is a bit of both worlds.

When done well a stream can be both entertaining and enlightening, allowing viewers to learn about a format or game by watching people actively play it and through the commentary. This brings The Law of Reciprocity into play, which basically says that people feel compelled to give value for value.

The better your stream is and the more regularly your viewers watch, the likelihood of them converting into customers gets higher and higher.

There is a reason that there are many streamers on the platform earning a living just playing video games all day.

#5 Streaming is the top of your funnel

This plays into the #2 point where your stream is another marketing channel for your business. All of your store’s marketing efforts are part of your overall business funnel.

The basic structure of every funnel looks like this:

Prospects find your store –> Leads choose you –> Customers buy from you –> (Bonus section: buyers become repeat buyers.)

Keeping your funnel full of prospects is the key to bringing in a constant stream (pun intended) of new customers to your business. Streaming your events can be the leverage that will help increase the overall reach of your marketing efforts.

If you want to begin streaming your Magic events, the next step is getting the basic equipment you need to get started. Click here to access the Streaming and Video Tech Checklist, the quickest way for you to assemble the tech and software you need to get your stream online start building an audience.