Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins shook up the streaming world when he switched from Twitch to Mixer, and now fans might have an idea of how much money he is making as a result of the move.
When Ninja made his leap to Mixer, he might not have realized it at the time, but that was just the beginning of a streaming war.
Since his high-profile switch, we’ve seen Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek move to Mixer and 100 Thieves creators Jack ‘CouRageJD’ Dunlop and Rachell ‘Valkyrae’ Hofstetter jump to YouTube Gaming.
There are several other names that have made big moves, and there will continue to be more in the future, but Ninja is the one who kicked it all off.
Many suspect that he was paid millions to leave his 14 million followers behind on Twitch, but nothing official has ever been revealed.
According to a report from CNN on January 26, Ninja is making between $20 and $30 million to stream on Mixer. This information comes from Justin Warden, CEO of Ader, who says he has direct knowledge of the deal.
A Bloomberg report claimed both Ninja and shroud were making as much as $40 million over three to five-year deals, so these latest numbers are more conservative.
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CNN reached out to Ninja’s agency, Loaded, who declined to confirm the actual numbers of the signing.
Nevertheless, it seems clear that Ninja had a lot of incentive to move to the smaller streaming platform. His signing, along with shroud’s, was supposed to bring more eyes over to Microsoft’s platform, but it hasn’t had much of an impact as of yet.
What it has done, though, is get more people talking about Mixer as a real competitor, even if the viewership isn’t there quite yet.
The four major players in the streaming war remain Twitch, YouTube Gaming, Facebook Gaming, and Mixer, with all three of them having more viewers than Microsoft’s platform. Facebook Gaming has even gained Disguised Toast and Corinna Kopf, showing they are open to spending some cash to bring over big names.
It’s far too early to determine if the money the Mixer star is reportedly being paid will actually be beneficial, but it’s looking like that’s going to end up being Microsoft’s problem to worry about more than it is Ninja’s.