Who Is Ninja and How Does He Make $6 Million a Year on Twitch?

As the popularity of Fortnite and Twitch grow exponentially, you may find yourself curious about one of the platform’s most popular streamers, a 26-year-old named Tyler Blevins, aka Ninja.

Ninja has achieved mainstream notoriety in 2018. He’s first in total Twitch streamers with over 6.5 million, he shattered streaming records when he played Fortnite with Drake, and he recently confirmed that he makes at least $500,000 every month. So, we wanted to dive a little deeper into who Tyler Blevins is and how he’s making so much money playing video games.

Blevins got the video game bug by his dad, who would sometimes stay up playing them deep into the night. Blevins started playing competitive Halo in 2009, and with his team, Warriors, took first place at a Halo 4 tournament in Dallas in 2012. Eventually, Blevins decided to dedicate most of his energy to streaming, but his increasing popularity was almost thwarted when in 2014 he had to have surgery to repair retinal detachment. He spent months after the surgery not streaming while his eyes recovered, but when he came back, he was as good a player as ever.

In 2017, Ninja began playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds before eventually switching primarily to Fortnite. His Fortnite stream with Drake in March 2018 shut down the Internet for one night and made Ninja a household name… if he wasn’t already. So now he’s arguably the most popular Twitch streamer in the world — but how does he make all his money?

In an interview with CNBC, he confirmed his $500,000 monthly income, and pointed primarily to Twitch and YouTube as his revenue streams. Ninja earns $3.50 for every paid Twitch subscriber that comes from his channel. Add that to donations he receives on Twitch, sponsorships and ads on his videos, plus ads on videos to his over 10 million YouTube subscribers, and you’ve got a pretty good career on your hands.

In the CNBC interview, he credits his success not just to his jovial personality, but also to the fact that he’s really really good at video games. So this isn’t just like watching one of your friends play Madden — Ninja is one of the best. In fact, even though he doesn’t stream it much these days, his brothers still believe he is the best Halo player in the world.

But, Ninja hasn’t forgotten his roots. He used to work at a Noodles & Company, and defended them on Twitter as “fast service, not fast food,” for which the restaurant chain was quite grateful. In fact, he kept working and going to college while pursuing competitive eSports. And, he’s quick to tell other young people that a career playing video games isn’t the easiest path to take. But, all that being said, Ninja pretty much has any college gamers dream job. He plays video games, hangs out with celebrities and makes a shit ton of money in the process.

What do you guys think? Could you make millions every year streaming Fortnite? Want to quit your job and give it a shot? Let us know in the comments.

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