After taking home the Major League Gaming Season One Championship and scoring his first MLG Championship trophy, Matt “NaDeSHoT” Haag capped off the night with one more achievement: one million Twitter followers.
https://twitter.com/OpTic_NaDeSHoT/status/569694966760542208
The achievement has a slightly deeper meaning to it then some may see by just looking at it. Nadeshot is now the first professional eSports player to hit such a number. This number still might not seem like much to some, so we’ll look at some other prominent figures and companies to get a sense of what Matt has truly achieved.
If you’ve ever seen one of Nadeshot’s YouTube videos, you would probably know he frequently buys food at Chipotle, one of the world’s fastest growing food chains. Chipotle’s Twitter is clocking in at 637,160 followers at the time of writing this, thats 364,097 less followers than Matt. It’s fascinating to put this number in perspective.
However, Nadeshot does have an advantage over some of these examples. It’s reasonable to assume most of Nade’s fans have a Twitter account and follow him due to the online nature of the situation. Unlike Chipotle for example, which has many customers who don’t follow them or don’t even have Twitter accounts.
Nadeshot has dominated the fast-casual mexican food chains on social media, now lets look to eSports. Sledgehammer Games, the developers of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, currently has 459,802 followers on Twitter, 541,522 behind Nadeshot.
This is an interesting comparison because Nadeshot is just a player of the game, and he has over twice as many followers as the developers. Sledgehammer frequently interacts with Nadeshot on Twitter and seems to respect him and his opinions. They realize that a lot of the people that buy their game look up to him and want to maintain a healthy relationship.
https://twitter.com/shgames/status/557330272031498240
Team Solo Mid’s ADC, WildTurtle, a fan favorite League of Legends player, clocks in at 274,707 followers at the time of writing this. Someone who has competed in places such as the Staples Center and South Korea for the LCS Worlds tournament is still 726,550 behind NaDeSHot.
Nadeshot has spent years building his personal brand. He has taken a lot of time to interact with his fans and become an internet celebrity. Most players in eSports haven’t spent as much time as him when it comes to building an audience. This is definitely a factor when it comes to follower count.
Its not just Twitter that Haag is dominating, it’s also YouTube. Nadeshot uploads videos almost daily that range from vlogs to gameplays. His channel is one of the largest in gaming on YouTube. With 1,638,310 subscribers, Nadeshot ranks in the top 100 highest subscribed channels for gaming. He is just about 100,000 subscribers under Gamespot, one of the world’s largest gaming websites.
At this point you might be asking, who does have more followers than him? Well I’ve got a perfect one for you. Mr. President, yes Barack Obama. Leading the nation, pun completely intended, with 55,355,221 followers. This leaves Matt 54,353,880 followers behind. Who knows, give him and eSports a few more years and we might have a new Commander-In-Chief.
In all seriousness, Nadeshot reaching one million followers on Twitter is a huge thing for eSports. Players are starting to take note of how Nadeshot built an audience through years of dedication and hard work. Many players in the CoD community are making daily YouTube videos and climbing the ranks in follower counts. He has set the precedent and others are taking notice. That’s growth.
