Creator Clash 2’s huge $250,000 loss leaves iDubbbz questioning event’s future

Despite the popularity of Creator Clash 2, iDubbbz has today revealed the recent event which was intended to build on the success of its predecessor actually wound up doing the total opposite, butting the creator out of $250,000.

There’s no money to donate to charity after the event reported big losses, iDubbbz said in a lengthy video, The Harsh Reality of Creator Clash 2, and apparently piracy played a big part.

While the event did have around 50,000 pay-per-view buys, more than one million still viewed the event illegally—but iDubbbz isn’t blaming those fans for the failure.

“We didn’t have any anti-piracy measures, we weren’t prepared to deal with what ended up happening,” iDubbbz explained. “Amongst 800 pirated streaming sites there were between 1.3 and three million viewers.”

While it may have resulted in a huge loss overall, the massive number of viewers, be it illegally or via proper channels, has still given iDubbbz some optimism. The YouTuber says it shows there is demand for this kind of event despite people not being able to support it financially, or not personally wanting to support him.

Going further, iDubbbz said he believes his biggest mistake was selling the event via PPV rather than sharing it for free, especially considering how many were originally attracted to Creator Clash because of the talent on-show.

Related: Creator Clash 2: Scores, fights, and live results

“I think it was in a lot of ways bad to appeal to that crowd and not give away the stream for free,” iDubbbz said. “I think a lot of them felt like this should be something that’s free especially if you have ads in it.”

Of course, it wasn’t just piracy that led to Creator Clash 2 losing money. The event was much larger in scale than the first one meaning that there were substantially more expenses to run the event and accommodate the athletes.

Ultimately, the failure of this event has called into question whether or not there will be a threequel to what has been a relatively popular idea. “What the hell are we going to do? I can’t even think of a Creator Clash 3, we lost money and there’s no money for charity, so what are we gonna do to solve that,” iDubbbz asked.

The plan for Clash right now is for the most recent event to be shared in full on YouTube with a fundraiser goal included to gather donations for a charity.

For now, it remains to be seen what the future of Creator Clash will be.