During the last days we have talked about the phenomenon that is being the Twitch channel of Luis Enrique, the coach of the Spanish team. The coach has been sweeping social networks for weeks due to his humor boomers, his calm and innocence and a handful of phrases that will remain in the history of the World Cups. Yes, meme fodder, but professional at the same time. And while, those who suffer the most are the media sports, which they see in the streamers a growing threat in the battle for audiences for sports content.
This conflict has already materialized, a few hours ago, with an unprofessional act on the part of several journalists that has caused a great uproar on social networks and not without reason.
Everything happened in the COPE program, The Big Gamewhere part of one of the coach’s broadcasts on Twitch was published in which he supposedly claimed that a female viewer she had “got horny for sure” before the voice of the selection psychologist. However, the audio edition put a phrase in her mouth that was not really hers, but rather that of a viewer in the chat of her Twitch channel. The audio had been edited and decontextualized, and the original sound corresponds to the selector reading the comment of the person who wrote in the chat.
Eye @Notepad. JA Alcalá’s friend manipulating an audio from Luis Enrique’s Twitch, in one more example of his ethics and professionalism. (40 sec). pic.twitter.com/pHNPl5nPza
— Álvaro (@ alvarito7697) November 30, 2022
As commented by the Twitter user @alvarito7697if we pay attention to original audio, it can be seen how at the end of the intervention by Joaquín Váldes, the psychologist of the national team, Luis Enrique does not make this comment, but rather says the following: “She is extremely relaxed, she has fallen asleep”. And so, four minutes later Luis Enrique points out that in the chat “there are several making comments”. One of them was from the user “Laura Fitness”, who says “María has been horny for sure”. And the coach was just reading that comment out loud.
As expected, the hordes of Luis Enrique fans have come out tooth and nail to defend their new hero and it only took a few hours for them to the controversy will land on the networks and on some sports radios. “Lama recently manipulated in GOL the chants of Madrid fans in Paris. Pérez de Rozas taking out Luis Enrique’s daughter. Paco González saying that being a streamer does not prepare the matches. Alcalá directly doing an edit manipulating. La Cadena COPE in full form”, criticized a Twitter user.
Even the players have turned against the medium. “Then we will have to ask the person in charge what his intention was by manipulating that audio, right? You have to enjoy the World Cup and our team Juanma a bit”, said Óscar Valentín, Rayo Vallecano player.
The edition of an audio by Luis Enrique last night in El Partidazo put in his mouth a phrase, jokingly, from a viewer in the chat of his Twitch channel. The most angry is me, I assure you, and I apologize on behalf of the program. Sorry.
— Juanma Castaño (@juanmacastano) November 30, 2022
In the end, even Juanma Castaño recognized that the audio had been edited Y has apologized: “The edition of an audio by Luis Enrique last night in El Partidazo put in his mouth a phrase, jokingly, from a viewer in the chat of his Twitch channel. I am the most angry, I assure you, and I apologize on behalf of the program. Sorry.”
The other story of the controversy
All this, beyond the sauce, tells a different story. He talks about a recent phenomenon where interest in the Twitch platform is unstoppable and that explains why “Luis Padrique” has become the idol of the masses that he already is. And this controversy is nothing more than the last blow of the war of the media for impose their agenda on Luis Enrique (and towards other athletes who open their own communication channels).
It must be taken into account that in its first five days shakingLuis Enrique already accumulated 617,000 followers, which have reached more than 537,000 hours of content played. As we have reported in this Magnet article, the coach has reached a peak of 152,078 simultaneous viewers, with an average of just under 100,000.
Figures that show how hard it is for sports media to compete against the Twitch phenomenon. And that explain why the selector has become the target of the media conventional (as has happened with COPE). And it is that in recent years some journalists have expressed a certain resentment towards youtubers and streamers (we already saw it with him rifi rafe between Juanma Castaño and Ibai for the interview with Messi).
Among these content creators are Rubén Martín, Miguel Ángel Román, Evangelio, Siro López or Gerard Romero, who succeed on Twitch talking about sport. What is clear is that no one can decide at this point what people are really interested in or where users decide to consume more content.
And if Luis Enrique is there, fathering on the Internet, it will be for a reason.