Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, perhaps the world’s most well-known and successful livestreamer, announced yesterday that he would be leaving the Twitch platform as part of a new exclusivity contract with theMicrosoft platform Mixer. Ninja will continue to streamFortniteat Mixer, touting the move as a way to remember why he fell in love with streaming in the first place. Many of Ninja’s most loyal fans understand that he must have been offered an impressive deal, but are curious about the details. A new clip from Ninja’s stream may lend some insight.
During a stream featuring Ninja,DrLupo, and other Twitch streamers, DrLupo posed a hypothetical. He asked Ninja to consider the possibility of a new Netflix streaming platform offering up exclusivity deals to popular streamers. Ninja then asked the direct question of how much DrLupo would have to be paid to agree to such an exclusivity deal, to which DrLupo says $10 million for 3 years.
Ninja’s reaction perhaps sheds some light on his Mixer exclusivity deal, as he’s somewhat stunned by DrLupo’s request. He asks “Each year?” under the mistaken impression that DrLupo is asking for $30 million total, only to be corrected in that DrLupo is saying $10 million total for three years.Ninjafollows up by saying to DrLupo, “With the numbers that you do get, that’s definitely doable.” In his phrasing, Ninja could be suggesting that he is already familiar with such offers, but also that $10 million for three years isn’t something he’d personally agree to.
There are likely several conclusions that fans can draw based on Ninja’s comments in these clips. One, that Ninja has been fielding exclusivity offers for some time, whether that be Facebook, YouTube, Mixer, or Twitch itself. Two, that any exclusivity deal Ninja accepted is likely paying him between $3 and $10 million a year. This fits with Forsen’s breakdown predictingNinja’s contract being between $6 and $8 million per year. And third, that Ninja’s exclusivity contract is for multiple years.
Given that Ninja’s exclusivity with Mixer is one of the biggest and most interesting moves in livestreaming history sinceAmazon bought Twitch, many will be fascinated to find out how everything developed. Perhaps in time Ninja will offer hints, but for right now there is a lot of speculation going on.
