Ninja allegedly made $20-30 million by moving to Mixer

(Image credit: Epic Games)

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. 

TOPICS
Fraser Brown
Online Editor

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog. 

Latest in Survival & Crafting
Crying laughing emoji with disturbing realistic elements for REPO
REPO's first update will add a new map and a 'duck bucket' so we can finally give that pesky quacker a time out
Man facing camera
The Day Before studio reportedly sues Russian website for calling infamous disaster-game a 'scam'
Sunset in the desert in Hello Sunshine
Hello Sunshine is a desert survival sandbox where you live in the literal shadow of the colossus
Performers acting as zombies are seen on a train coach during the "Train to Apocalypse" event as part of the Pandora Box Artmire Festival 2024 held to attract commuters to ride the city's rapid transit system LRT (light rapid transit), in Jakarta on July 11, 2024. (Photo by BAY ISMOYO / AFP) (Photo by BAY ISMOYO/AFP via Getty Images)
Venerable browser-based MMO Urban Dead is closing this week after a 20-year run, not with a bang but with a whimper
Wearing a hazmat suit, a Rust player proudly holds up a freshly cooked pie, foregrounded by a table covered with pies and a large pumpkin on the left.
Rust's crafting update gives the survival sim real-time food cooking and pies to rival Monster Hunter, but the tastiest treat is the ability to make and throw 'bee grenades'
A pig, a cow, and two birds dance
Minecraft Live returns in March with everyone's favorite kind of content: 'exclusive movie content'
Latest in News
Cognixion’s AI powered headset
New headset reads minds and uses AR, AI and machine learning to help people with locked-in-syndrome communicate with loved ones again
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holding an RTX 50-series card.
92% of Nvidia users turn on DLSS... if they've been lucky enough to bag an RTX 50-series card at launch AND have the Nvidia App installed
A woman with an arcane slingshot uses it to light a distant fire
Deconstructeam's next game is about training to shoot a single fireball at an impossible target
assassin's creed shadow naoe
We asked two parkour athletes to rate the realism of Assassin's Creed's acrobatics, and a surprising 'crime against parkour' might actually be one of the most realistic things they saw
Aooster's G-Flip 370 mini PC
This palm-sized PC has removably memory, a flip up screen, and a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor
Mechs fight on the outside of a spaceship
MechWarrior 5: Clans is getting DLC with playable Elementals and a fight on the outside of a spaceship