Husky & HD (another StarCraft caster) both have a healthy revenue stream from their Youtube Channel. There are at least 12 other casters/players in North America/Europe making a living casting StarCraft II games.<p>Husky wasn't the first to cast. Guys like Day9, Artosis, & Tasteless cast too, and are quite popular. But HD & Husky were the first to focus mostly on "Virtual" tournaments. The other successful casters focused more on "Real life" tournaments. Artosis & Tasteless even went to Korea for a year to comment StarCraft II games on GomTV. Day9 regularly travel to big tournaments.<p>And yet, none of them make as much money as Husky & HD (supposedly, I don't have hard numbers.)<p>It shows the power of the web. The old medias are here to stay, but most of the creativity & growth today comes from the web.
200 million views is somewhere around $400k - $600k ($2 - $3 CPM).<p>It's crazy how many people are earning a good living off YouTube. Not a lot in absolute numbers, but when you compare it to the number of TV show hosts on cable/broadcast TV it's quite impressive.<p>The dream of independent niche content producers finding an audience and making good money is actually happening.
It's also interesting that Starcraft players themselves don't make anything close to this. new-age movie studios if you will. Not that there's anything wrong with that. These guys actually love what they do, and spend a lot of time doing it.
Don't forget to check out their parody of Bieber's "Baby", entitled "Banelings": <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMhh8zhTiY" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMhh8zhTiY</a>
I really like stories like this. I was a pretty decent Starcraft player myself and I started watching his videos last year. He does a great job of announcing the matches and just watching the videos makes you a better player. Congrats to him.