Chzzk vs SOOP: How Korea's Streaming War Was Won After Twitch Left

On February 27, 2024, Twitch switched off its service in South Korea. Its chief executive, Dan Clancy, had explained in December that the cost of running the service there was "prohibitively expensive," with network fees about ten times higher than in most other countries. Overnight, some of Korea's biggest game streamers and their audiences needed somewhere else to go.

Two platforms were waiting. SOOP, the new name of the veteran service AfreecaTV, had dominated Korean live streaming for almost two decades. Chzzk, from internet giant Naver, had opened in beta just weeks after Twitch announced it was leaving. In late 2026, the result is clear: Chzzk has overtaken SOOP in monthly users and, in the third quarter of 2026, in hours watched for the first time, 335.2 million to 333 million, according to the analytics firm Streams Charts.

The incumbent: AfreecaTV becomes SOOP

AfreecaTV grew up with Korean online gaming. It popularised the "BJ," or broadcast jockey, and star balloons, virtual gifts viewers buy and send to streamers, which streamers then convert into cash. That donation model made AfreecaTV very profitable, but it also gave the platform a reputation for sensational broadcasts that it has spent years trying to shake.

In 2024 the company rebranded as SOOP, launched a global platform and put esports at the centre of its strategy. It runs leagues and tournaments for StarCraft (the ASL), Valorant, PUBG and others, operates three esports venues including the SOOP Colosseum in Sangam, and has streaming partnerships with seven of the ten LCK teams, including T1 and Gen.G. It owns its own LCK team, DN SOOPers.

The challenger: Naver's Chzzk

Naver launched Chzzk in beta on December 19, 2023, less than two weeks after Twitch announced its departure. The timing could hardly have been better. Chzzk offered a Twitch-like experience, with high-quality streams and a clean interface, and it had a huge advantage: Naver, Korea's biggest search portal, could promote it everywhere from its app's home feed to search results.

Naver used that reach aggressively. It pushed Chzzk clips into its app's home feed and a dedicated clip tab, and in November 2024, the month of the first user lead, clip plays rose 82% and clip creation 74% from the previous month. It also won exclusive rights to that year's LoL KeSPA Cup. SOOP responded by bringing back AfreecaTV founder Seo Soo-kil as co-chief executive in December 2024, three years after he had stepped back from management.

Streamers moved, and their viewers followed. According to the data firm MobileIndex, Chzzk passed SOOP in monthly active users for the first time in November 2024, by just 18,232 people: 2,421,729 to 2,403,497. The gap has widened since. In February 2026, MobileIndex counted 3.55 million monthly users on Chzzk against 2.30 million on SOOP, in a Korean streaming audience of about 5 million.

The battle for big events

Live streaming is now a fight for rights, and Naver has spent heavily. In 2026, Chzzk streamed all 104 matches of the FIFA World Cup in North America for Korean viewers. It says its peak concurrent audience, during Korea's match against South Africa in June, was about 4.94 million. It also took exclusive Korean streaming rights to all the events of the Esports World Cup 2026, which opened on July 6.

SOOP has taken a different path. Its former chief executive Choi Young-woo said in July 2025 that the company would not join a "chicken game" over expensive sports rights, and SOOP has focused on esports it can run itself. In December 2025, SOOP signed a five-year LCK partnership alongside Riot Games and Naver, a deal reported to be worth about 150 billion won in total, with SOOP's share about 50 billion won. Both platforms carry the league.

The results show in viewing data. Over one month in mid-2026, average viewership on the two platforms was roughly equal at about 140,000 each, according to the tracker Soopcon, but Chzzk's peak of 800,000 concurrent viewers was well ahead of SOOP's 450,000.

The money: SOOP's squeeze

For SOOP, losing users has hurt profits. In the second quarter of 2026, revenue fell 11.2% to 103.84 billion won and operating profit fell 57.9% to 12.63 billion won, partly due to one-off costs from a tax investigation. Platform revenue, mostly star balloons, was 74.13 billion won, about 71% of the total.

The third quarter was steadier but still well below last year: revenue of 105.7 billion won, down 16% year on year, and operating profit of 14.5 billion won, down 59.9%. Advertising was a bright spot, up 35.4% from the previous quarter to 36.8 billion won, helped by esports campaigns such as FC Online events and the Valorant VCT Busan roadshow. SOOP has also turned to shareholders: it retired 306,375 of its own shares in September, about 2.7% of the total, and has committed to paying out at least 25% of consolidated net profit as dividends. It has promised a redesigned app and new tools, including AI recommendations and chat translation for global viewers, from 2027.

By the numbers

• February 27, 2024: Twitch ends service in Korea
• December 19, 2023: Chzzk beta launch
• 3.55 million vs 2.30 million: Chzzk and SOOP monthly users, February 2026 (MobileIndex)
• 335.2 million vs 333 million: hours watched on Chzzk and SOOP in Q3 2026 (Streams Charts)
• 4.94 million: Chzzk's reported peak concurrent viewers during the 2026 World Cup
• 105.7 billion won: SOOP's Q3 2026 revenue, down 16% year on year

Why it matters

Korea's streaming war matters well beyond Korea. It is the clearest case of a global platform leaving a big gaming market and local companies racing to fill the gap. Twitch's exit also became part of a long-running Korean argument over network usage fees, the charges that internet providers want large content services to pay for the traffic they create. For global platforms weighing the Korean market, the episode showed that those costs can decide whether a service stays or goes.

It also shows how much distribution counts: Chzzk's quality was good, but Naver's ability to put it in front of tens of millions of people was decisive.

WGC's take: viewers and streamers have won from the competition. Two strong platforms mean better revenue deals for streamers, more esports coverage and less dependence on a single company's policies. The risk is that rights battles become so expensive that only the richest platform can afford them.

What to watch

Watch whether SOOP's redesign and esports strategy can stop the slide in users, and whether its ad growth continues. Watch Chzzk's ability to keep the World Cup audience after the tournament, since Streams Charts noted a sharp drop in viewing across platforms in August and September. And watch LCK and League of Legends events, the backbone of Korean game streaming on both platforms, as the 2027 season approaches. For the global picture, see our story on the world's streaming platforms in Q3 2026.