From e-sportsman for Berlin to German Twitch millionaire – the story of eliasn97

From e-sportsman for Berlin to German Twitch millionaire - the story of eliasn97

Elias “eliasn97” Nerlich (24) is currently the biggest streamer on Twitch, founder and co-owner of the e-sports team FOKUS CLAN and also successful on YouTube. MeinMMO introduces you to the content creator.

This is how it started: According to their own statements, eliasn97 wanted to “become a professional soccer player like everyone else”. He had played football all his life, but it was never enough for a professional career. In addition, he sustained a serious injury to his leg during soccer training, which required two surgeries – that’s how he came across FIFA 17. That’s how his love and penchant for the game developed.

In August 2018, he was then accepted into the e-sports team for FIFA 19 by the Hertha BSC football club. Nerlich was spotted at the FUT Champions Cup in Barcelona when he was among the top 64 players for November 2017.

On September 7, 2018, the then 20-year-old Nerlich introduced himself to his YouTube community in a high-quality trailer, but according to his statements, not of his own accord, but because Hertha BSC insisted on it. For the time being, his YouTube channel should only be about FIFA.

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eliasn97 about his work and how it became a success

While he was working as an e-sportsman, he also played on his YouTube and Twitch channels. Nerlich said that he sometimes recorded until 5 a.m., cut the video until 8 a.m. and then had to go to appointments. It was important to him not to be careless.

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His YouTube channel was initially the only place he streamed and uploaded videos, along with platforms like Twitter and Instagram. He built up a following of around 200,000 subscribers there before deciding to do the same in April 2020 Twitter to stream.

So he pursued his career as an e-sportsman, was active on Twitch, YouTube and all other social media channels such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.

FIFA-Pro is one of the biggest German Twitch streamers – but not with FIFA

How did he get success on YouTube? On the one hand, regularity and commitment on the part of eliasn97 helped. On the other hand, his nature, openness and his contact with well-known personalities and the resulting interesting videos.

Nerlich was known in his community for not being the most laid-back FIFA player and he used to get upset loudly when things didn’t go the way he imagined.

He was also in close contact with professional soccer players, such as his best friend Sidney Friede. He produced a wide variety of videos with them, in which they chatted about life as professionals, opened FIFA packs or simply gambled for PSN cards.

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He also diligently interacted with his community by streaming how he opened his viewers’ FIFA rewards. This went on as a series on his YouTube channel for a long time.

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Then, in August 2020, he threw in videos here and there of Fall Guys and Mario Kart tournaments hosted by Twitch streamers Trymacs and MontanaBlack, but it was still mostly about FIFA.

How much did eliasn97 earn? According to his own statements, the 24-year-old earned at least 10,000 euros a month in 2020. The best earnings were 45,000 euros per month. Both figures were gross and included both his e-sports career and the income from Twitch and YouTube.

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The way to become the most successful Twitch streamer in Germany

How did he get started on Twitch? By building up a solid following on YouTube, he started straight away on Twitch in April 2020 with around 3,100 viewers on average. There he brought less FIFA, but rather streams in the Just Chatting category and talked to his audience.

Since then, his numbers have increased fairly steadily. Although he buckled in June 2021 in terms of his average viewers, it was still almost 15,000. He also recovered from it in the months that followed.

eliasn97’s average viewership in the overview (via SullyGnome.com)

There was a rapid increase in his viewership, especially from October 2020 to January 2021. During this time, he mainly streamed the Steam hit Among Us and FIFA 21, which was released in October. He himself also said that the Corona period also helped his streams.

The regularity of his streams also increased over the period. eliasn97 only streamed for 7 days in October and 15 days in January. He expanded this until he even streamed almost every day.

He always did something together with other well-known streamers like MontanaBlack, Trymacs or his FIFA buddies.

This is Twitch streamer and YouTuber eliasn97 in 2022

How is it on Twitch? He currently reaches around 27,500 viewers on average with his live broadcasts, placing himself ahead of what was once the largest streamer in Germany and is now number 1 on Twitch. Most recently, Nerlich celebrated the 1 million followers on the platform.

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How is it on YouTube? Things are going just as well there. Nerlich currently has 825,000 subscriptions to his YouTube channel and gets between 7.8 and 10.1 million video views a month.

There is now not only FIFA, but also Valorant, Fortnite or other games together with other content creators.

eliasn97 turns its back on FIFA

Why is there hardly any FIFA on YouTube anymore? In a longer video, eliasn97 talked about only wanting to play Career Mode and Squad Builder Battle, but nothing else. He says “EA doesn’t do anything anyway – the game is completely fucked up.” The streamer commented on the bad pulls from packs and that it wasn’t like that at the time.

In the FIFA Ultimate Team mode there is also the Weekend League, which, according to Nerlich, has deteriorated dramatically and that he no longer enjoys. The Weekend League is the thing in FIFA Ultimate Team where the best of the best compete against each other with custom teams.

You can see more details and background on his exit in his video:

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What about e-sports then? Since August 2021, eliasn97 is no longer an e-sportsman at Hertha BSC and he founded his own team – the FOKUS CLAN. Together with Dennis Andreas Nirtl and Martin Wyss he leads the e-sports team. So far, they have mostly been able to place themselves quite successfully between rank 9 and 16 in FIFA tournaments.

And it doesn’t look bad in Valorant either. Within 90 days, the FOKUS Valorant team was able to qualify for the highest league in Europe (via Twitter).

How much does eliasn97 earn these days? In addition to Twitch, his team, YouTube and Co., the streamer also owns a fashion brand together with his buddy Sidney Friede, which probably also brings in decent sales. He said that after almost a year in the business, they made about 10 million euros.

Nerlich didn’t reveal how much he earns from the rest, but he said in an interview in January 2022 that he “probably never has to work again”.

Not with FIFA, but the streamer Trymacs also had something to do with football: Twitch streamer feels the full anger of hard football fans: “I’ve never split people so much”



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