Streaming platform Caffeine shuts down

Streaming platform Caffeine, which has broadcast content from sports, gaming, and entertainment, has shut down as of June 26.

Caffeine announced the decision on its website Wednesday.

Here’s the full announcement.

We’re at the point where we are still not quite profitable, so we’ve made the decision to end the service as of June 26th as we figure out our next steps. It has been a wild ride, with quite a few achievements along the way:

• We built a world class streaming platform that has grown to 61 million monthly users and 4 million per day.
• Aggregated 200 sports partners across 17 categories of sports.
• Explored virtual gifting, subscriptions, PPV and advertising business models, and every shade of gray in between.
• Built a world class team, world class board, and world class set of investors.
• Created a unique and disruptive angle for live streaming sports.

We’ve had a huge impact on the industry and will again soon, in a different way. Many, many thanks to all involved. We’ll remember this for life.

Caffeine notably received an investment of $100 million from Fox back in 2018.

Live sports found a home on Caffeine, especially those of a more niche variety. Those included the World Surf League, Women’s National Football Conference, and perhaps most notably, LIV Golf.

Last year, Caffeine CEO Ben Keighran talked to AA about the platform and its growth. He seemed optimistic at the time, saying more content from “niche and emerging sports leagues, partners and competitive events” would be coming in 2024. In addition to live events, Caffeine distributed content from “traditional media publishers like Barstool Sports, Blue Wire, Bleav Network, Clutch Points, The Action Network” and was aiming to “continue to ramp up and expand our advertising and distribution partnerships” this year.

Wednesday’s announcement about Caffeine’s shutdown puts those expansion plans to a sudden end, and backs a number of smaller sports leagues into a corner regarding their future streaming plans.

[Caffeine]