Last year, Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins ditched Twitch for Microsoft's streaming platform, Mixer, hosting a fake press conference to tell the world he was switching sites. In 2018, he was making $500,000 a month on Twitch, so it was assumed he was picked up for a hefty sum. According to CNN Business, that sum amounts to between $20 and $30 million.
Ninja has certainly made the most of his fame, spinning it into a sportswear collaboration with Adidas, a book deal, hosting gigs and, most recently, a Ninja Fortnite skin, all of which seem to have overshadowed controversies like using a racial slur on a livestream or stating that he'd never stream with women (unless it's Ellen).
His wealth has grown to the point where he can be pretty dismissive about losing tens of thousands of dollars, which he apparently does whenever he spends time doing interviews or events instead of streaming to his subscribers. When he participated in the Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am in 2018, more than 40,000 subscribers left him, simply because he was away for two days.
According to Justin Warden, CEO of a talent management agency that works with Ninja, Ader, he can afford to lose a few bucks. For moving to Mixer, he claims, Ninja is getting tens of millions. Warden, along with Ryan Morrison of talent agency Evolved, reckon that streamers with 10,000 concurrent views on Twitch could turn that into a $10 million deal with Microsoft, while smaller streamers could still net themselves $1 million.
The numbers are pretty excessive, especially when compared to what other industry professionals make. In the US, an entry-level programmer role nets developers $51,683, according to PayScale, while an average developer can expect around $65,423, a bit above the national average. Even before the deal, Ninja made nearly $10 million in a year.
Ninja's agency did not confirm the numbers.
