It’s possible that Ninja is now bigger than Fortnite itself, if that’s even possible.
Just last month, Fortnite streamer Ninja (real name Tyler Blevins) turned heads and kept people glued to their devices of choice way into the wee hours of the morning with a star-studded stream featuring Drake, NFL player JuJu Smith-Schuster and other well-known personalities. That effort broke the record for most concurrent viewers on Twitch, making Ninja a ton more money and opening even more eyes to the Fortnite phenomenon and Ninja’s rising star power.
Turns out the latter might be even bigger than anyone thought. Ninja hosted one of the first events at the new esports arena that just opened at the Luxor in Las Vegas, and of course, he streamed it. Fortnite fans tuned in again in droves, with a new record 680,000 concurrent viewers watching people play nine games against top pros and Ninja himself.
As Forbes reports, it wasn’t exactly esports — Fortnite doesn’t have an organized competitive structure yet, though you can bet developer Epic Games is hard at work on one as we speak — but more of a glitzier version of the type of thing that Ninja does normally, gussied up with prizes and additional guests from the gaming world. One of those was Myth, a very popular Fortnite streamer in his own right.
Next: Fortnite college scholarships are now a thing
So where does Ninja go from here? Different venues would no doubt be wise to investigate the possibility of him hosting similar events, with Forbes suggesting that maybe the Vegas arena would consider making it a regular thing. It’s hard to lure Ninja with money as he’s likely closing in on making a million dollars a month just from his Twitch subscribers alone, but considering the hold he has on the video game streaming world right now, smart people should be hitting him up with ideas on how to leverage his fame while the proverbial iron is still at its hottest.