Caffeine, one of the Internet’s go-to destinations for niche and emerging sports leagues, competitive events, and media publishers, announced it reached a massive threshold — 60 million monthly users.

Initially launched in 2018 as a live-streaming esports and gaming platform to Twitch, Caffeine has pivoted into the world of sports, which has ignited its growth to the tune of 140x revenue growth for the platform over the last six months.

Just last year, the platform averaged five million monthly active users. The company credits its traction with young and diverse cord-cutting audiences as their viewers which in turn attracted new advertising partners.

“We’ve entered an exciting new phase of explosive growth for the company, with a focus on the majority of live sports,” says Caffeine CEO Ben Keighran. “With the decline of traditional linear cable options for leagues, nearly 11,000 global sports leagues have been left to navigate their unique distribution path. Caffeine is helping these leagues expand monetization and distribution opportunities at scale while providing a social-first, cord-cutting, and highly engaged young audience a platform to watch their favorite competitions in an interactive and community-based way.”

In the past year, Caffeine has significantly expanded its live sports programming and content offerings, particularly in key categories such as action sports, basketball, football, and more. Notable partnerships include X Games, World Surf League, Natural Selection Tour, World Skate, The Berrics, Dew Tour, TMPST Free Running, FIBA, Venice Basketball League, World Poker Tour, A7FL, WNFC, Grappling Network, BYB Extreme Fighting Series, amongst others.

Additionally, the platform hosts an array of live and on-demand podcasts and digital series from top sports podcast networks and legacy media companies including FOX Sports, Barstool Sports, Blue Wire, The Action Network, ClutchPoints, Bleav, and more.

Caffeine is available for free on iOS, Android, Roku, and Amazon Fire, as well as via web at Caffeine.TV.

Paul Pierce recently elevated eyebrows by claiming Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James was no longer one of the five best players in the NBA during a KG Certified broadcast on Showtime with Kevin Garnett. The interaction simply highlighted the interest Dave Portnoy has in bringing the pair to Barstool Sports.

During the NBA In-Season Tournament Championship Game Saturday evening, Garnett said James’ play proved he’s still one of the best in the game. Pierce staunchly disagreed, before claiming Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, and Jayson Tatum as players that were all better than the four-time champion.

The interaction between Garnett and Piece garnered nearly 6 million views on social media, with the two arguing about whether or not either one knew anything about basketball.

The interaction featured the two eventually shouting at each other, which caught the eye of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.

Portnoy — a noted Boston sports fan — claimed he admires the two former Celtics stars, and would love to bring them to his company.

“My bi monthly post saying I’d give my left arm to have these guys on Barstool Network,” Portnoy wrote in a post to X, as he shared the video of the interaction.

The two former NBA greats wouldn’t be the first former stars to join Barstool Sports. Pat McAfee, Deion Sanders, Alex Rodriguez, Jake Arrieta, and Arian Foster are just a few of the names that have done work with the digital outlet in recent years.

The power of words can be an interesting thing, especially when an opinion someone has can cause them to rethink things. College Gameday is where the fan goes to get a preview of the Saturday games as well as hear thoughts from the panel on the state of college football, but does it have an influence on some of the decision-makers in the sport and what kind of power does the show actually have? 

On the College Gameday podcast, Rece Davis talked about how he was asked on a show how much power he thinks the show has. He does think what someone like Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, or Pat McAfee says can make them rethink their opinion, he doesn’t think it can sway the playoff committee for example. 

“I was asked a while ago — I forgot what show it was on and they asked if I thought if we as a show, we as commentators who have been covering the sport being part of the growth and popularity through television of the sport — if I felt that we have any power. My response was ‘Define power.’

“If you mean do I think that someone says something on College GameDay, whether it’s me and certainly if it’s Kirk, Desmond, Pat, or Stanford Steve (all of whom played), if we say something on there, does it give the power breakers or decision-makers something to think about and go hmm? I would say the answer is yes, there is power.” 

Davis says he thinks an opinion can make people re-evaluate their stance on an issue, but he also doesn’t think people will completely change their thought on a key issue in the sport based on what someone says on television. 

“If you mean by power that we make phone calls, dictate to somebody, or have such influence over grown, successful human beings that they are going to align themselves with whatever opinion was offered on GameDay or any other ESPN platform, then no I don’t think we have that power.

“Do we have the power to make people evaluate their stance? I think so. I think that’s probably fair, but I also think that all of those people in the committee room and all the conference commissioners are accomplished human beings. They didn’t rise to the level of where they are by being so weak-spined that they are going to listen to Mr. Television Announcer and decide that’s where they are going to align themselves.”