Twitch personality Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren’s historic Twitch subathon finally came to an end on April 13.
The stream totaled 31 days of broadcasting on the platform. Ludwig started his stream on the afternoon of March 14 with the plan to add 20 seconds to his stream timer for every subscription or 500 bits given to his channel. As the stream went on, and on, and on, and the time that was added per subscription went down to 10 seconds. However, the 24/7 live airing of Ludwig’s life persisted until Ludwig’s self-imposed 31-day limit, capping off the stream after over 740 hours.
In its time on the air, the Ludwig subathon stream numbers, calculated by his community, are historic.
THE LAST DAY OF THE SUBATHON WILL BE TUESDAY APRIL 13 AT 9 PM PST
FOR EVERY SUB I GET THAT DAY I WILL DONATE $5 TO CHARITY
RAISING MONEY FOR @HumaneSociety AND @StJude pic.twitter.com/Ve2aL3NLLr
— ludwig (@LudwigAhgren) April 11, 2021
According to the unofficial stream statistic website TwitchTracker, Ludwig is the No. 1 subscribed broadcaster on the platform for the months of March and April, with over 280,000 subscribers. The content creator broke the previous subscription record set by Tyler “Ninja” Blevins of 269,154 subscribers earned back in April of 2018.
The Ludwig subathon’s final numbers
The Arizona native has earned around seven figures over the course of the broadcast and has pledged $1 from every subscription to charity, increasing that number to $5 in the final hours. Additionally, he is doling out $5,000 a day to his moderators, which is split between the 17 individuals. Ludwig will also hand over a large percentage of his gross income from the stream to Twitch and California state taxes.
The streamer gained over $1 million after 556 hours or about 23 days, with $41,850 as his highest earnings in 30 minutes, according to his community’s subathon spreadsheet. The total money from his subscribers over the month-long stream came out to around $1,300,000. The stream peaked at over 72 hours on the timer, at 130 hours in. But, the timer got as low as 1 second just days before April 13.
The stream almost ended on April 10 as the timer went down to just one second while Ludwig was asleep. Twitch user Demon Dog saved the stream by gifting 10 subscribers to the channel, increasing the timer to just under two minutes.
— ash 🍒 (@meowash_) April 10, 2021
The timer would remain below 24 hours after the 280 hours streamed mark, or about 11 days in.
On his seemingly never-ending stream, Ludwig cooked, slept, worked out and, of course, played video games. In his California home, where he lives with his five roommates and girlfriend, he streamed his life to around 43,000 viewers on average. As a result, while he slept, his moderators took over the broadcast. They hopped into a Discord call together while Ludwig laid unconscious in his red race car bed. The team played party games or watched videos together while encouraging viewers to subscribe to the channel.
On some days, Ludwig would awake to a longer timer and more subscribers than when he fell asleep.
I fell asleep on stream last night and became the most watched streamer on twitch
what the hell is even that
— ludwig (@LudwigAhgren) March 15, 2021
Ludwig breaks the mold
As the stream continued, many mainstream outlets took notice of the historic Twitch event and even documented the phenomenon. While Ludwigwill walk away with only a fraction of the subscription profits, the attention from contemporary media outlets and follower count is enough for him.
“At the end of the day, the total follower gain is just so big. We’ve actually had a New York Times article on this,” Ahgren said. “That’s insane. It’s nuts. All that is invaluable, I think. Spending $150K to get a Times article and all these followers, I’m fine with that.”
The event has ENDED! After 30 days on-stream, @LudwigAhgren has officially beaten Ninja’s sub record on Twitch with a final tally of 282191 subscribers.
Part of the $1.3 million earned will be gifted to St. Jude’s Charity and the Humane Society. pic.twitter.com/hBfHklNW5J— Upcomer (@Upcomer) April 14, 2021
The stream ended at midnight ET with a final tally of 282,191 subscribers and a tearful salute to the viewers that brought him to this historic benchmark.
