Ninja Net Worth: Gaming His Way to a $60M Fortune

Richard Tyler Blevins, better known in the gaming world as Ninja, is a famous American internet personality and professional gamer. Blevins embarked on this career by participating in eSports teams, following up with his online Fortnite streams on Twitch.tv where he became extremely popular. In 2024, Ninja’s net worth is estimated at $60 million.

Throughout his rich career, Ninja participated in the Halo 3 competition and played Fortnite with multiple A-list celebrities including Travis Scott, Drake, and JuJu Smith-Schuster on his streams. At one point, he broke the viewer count world record and these days, he has over 19 million followers on Twitch.

These days, the gamer doesn’t get the same number of concurrent viewers as he did at the peak of his fame, but he remains one of the top earners in the industry. Let’s see how he earned his millions.

Ninja’s Net Worth Breakdown

These days, the famous Twitch streamer is earning from multiple income sources, so his estimated net worth here will give you a guess of how much he is worth – while he is potentially worth much more.

Based on the data we uncovered, the streamer has earned the bulk of his fortune from his Microsoft deal and buyout. Seeing how he has been earning half a million a month since 2021, his net worth, and that there is no information about his sponsorship deals, his net worth is most likely higher than $60 million these days.

Here is a detailed breakdown of what contributes to his net worth:

Richard Tyler Ninja Blevins Net Worth: Education, Relationships, and Early Life

Tyler Blevins was born in Detroit, Michigan, on June 5, 1991. He was born Richard Tyler Blevins to his father Chuck and mother Cynthia and has two siblings, his older brothers John and Chris. The family relocated to the Chicago suburbs when Richard was only an infant.

Young Blevins studied at Grayslake Central High School, where he played soccer for the school’s team. He also worked at Noodles & Company to earn some extra income. As a child, he started playing games and began competing in video game tournaments. He was encouraged by his father Chuck, also a game enthusiast.

At this point in his life, Blevins had a deal with his parents – one hour of playing outside for one hour of gaming. When he appeared on The Tonight Show in 2018, he shared:

“I had to do so many chores just to get my mom to, you know, get me a video game because they’re pretty expensive, right?… You know, I loved playing soccer but, you know, I wasn’t like, passionate about it. I loved playing video games. So, if I wasn’t doing well in school or anything like that, they would just, you know, take it away”.

His favorite games back then were “Earthworm Jim” and “Ratchet & Clank”. Even at the beginning, beating him was almost impossible, with his father being the exception since he always bested him at the “NFL Blitz”.

Even from a young age, he was joining professional gaming organizations. When he studied at Wisconsin’s Silver Lake College, he began streaming his games live.

Personal Life

Tyler Ninja Blevins has been married to Jessica (Jess) Blevins since 2017. In March this year, he had a cancer scare when he shared that he was diagnosed with melanoma. However, a week later, following a biopsy, he announced that he was cancer-free.

Ninja Net Worth: Blevins’ Incredible Success in the eSports Gaming World

Tyler Blevins’ gaming career started straight out of high school. At this point, he was already very proficient in gaming. He kept his grades high and graduated on schedule, but then decided to join the gaming community and the career he was most passionate about.

Let’s see how his career progressed over the years.

Early Career Days

For Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, everything started with the smash hit shooter video game series Halo. He joined several gaming organizations and tournaments, allowing esports fans to watch him showcase his great skills from all around the world.

In the beginning, only a few people watched Tyler Blevins play the game, mostly his Xbox Live friends and his family. However, he spent up to 14 hours playing every day, joining competitions to attract a fan base.

“I would play GameBattles matches,” he said. “Anything competitive is always going to get you more viewers. When there’s something on the line, it’s just more exciting to watch. (One-on-one matches) in ‘Halo: Reach’ were kind of my bread and butter.”

Blevins started playing Halo 3 professionally in 2009, competing for different organizations including Team Liquid, Cloud9, Renegades, and Luminosity Gaming. He officially became a streamer in 2011.

Ninja’s PUBG Success and Breakthrough Point

A few years since his gaming debut in tournaments, Tyler Ninja Blevins was gaining quite the popularity in the community. He started playing H1Z1 and Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. In 2017, he joined Luminosity Gaming as a Halo player, then moved to PUBG. In August of the same year, he won the PUBG Gamescom Invitational Squads classification.

Shortly after winning the Gamescom Invitational, Ninja started streaming the newly released Fortnite Battle Royale. This would soon turn out to be a massive turning point in his career. With constant practice, he quickly became one of the best players in the game and so his viewership started growing fast. He timed his move to Fortnite perfectly because it blew up at around the same time, becoming the most popular video game at the time. He had 500,000 Twitch followers in September 2017 and over 2 million followers by March 2018!

Successes and Milestones as a Twitch Streamer

In March 2018, after he gained so many followers, Blevins became the first Twitch streamer to surpass 3 million followers on the platform. In the same month, he set a new record – the largest concurrent audience on a single stream (635,000) during his famous game with Drake, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Travis Scott.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tktEAa79lwg&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Ffinbold.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE

The success of his stream with Drake and other players was paramount to Ninja’s success – and brought him quite the income, too. The stream was an inspiration for Epic Games, the developers who created Fortnite, to host a charitable event featuring popular streamers and celebrities. This event took place at E3 2018 in June of that year, and Tyler Ninja Blevins won the event!

This year, 2018, was most likely his most successful year to date. In April, he broke his own viewing record when he attracted an audience of 667,000 live viewers during his event Ninja Vegas 2018.

In the same year, Blevins held a special Fortnite Battle Royale event in partnership with Red Bull eSports. The event Red Bull Rise Till Dawn took place in Chicago on July 21, where other gamers could challenge Ninja in the game.

By December 2018, Ninja was the first PC player to surpass 5,000 Fortnite wins in a single month!

Ninja Leaves Twitch

In August 2019, after the incredible success on the platform, the crowned Twitch streamer Blevins announced that he was leaving the platform. Ninja’s manager, his wife Jessica, told The Verge that his Twitch contract limited Ninja’s ability to grow his brand outside of video gaming.

Ninja left Twitch and switched to the Microsoft-owned platform Mixer. His fellow gamer Jessica Goch followed suit two months later, doing exactly the same.

However, when Microsoft shuttered Mixer in 2020 and folded the platform into Facebook Gaming, Ninja ultimately returned to Twitch. Facebook reportedly offered Shroud and Ninja double the money they were making at this point to join, but they both refused the offer.

As a result, Microsoft had to trigger a buyout clause, paying Ninja $30 million to walk away and Shroud $10 million. This amount, combined with the money he earned during the one-year Mixer deal, added a total of $40 million from Microsoft alone into Ninja’s net worth.

In August of the same year, both gamers rejoined Twitch. Blevins was released from his exclusivity deal and, in September, he signed a multiyear, exclusive deal with Twitch.

“I really took my time to decide which platform was best and Twitch has been supportive throughout this process and understanding my overall career goals. In this next chapter, I’m going to make it a point to elevate and bring more eyes to underrepresented creators. I am looking forward to working with Twitch to demonstrate how this amazing community of gamers can make a meaningful impact.” – he shared.

Hiatus and Return to the eSports industry

Two years after his return to Twitch, Ninja announced that he is taking a break from streaming. He changed his name on his Twitter, YouTube channel, and other social media accounts, to “User Not Found” and shared a background graphic stating “Time Out”. On Twitter, he shared:

I just need a break…I don't know when I will be back, or where

— Ninja (@Ninja) September 1, 2022

However, in September 2022, he announced his return and started streaming to multiple platforms simultaneously, including Twitch, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.

Ninja’s Earnings as a Gamer and Streamer

These days, Ninja lives in the Chicago suburbs and has won a Fortnite tournament with Marshmello, the EDM star. He has also attended the ESPY Awards. On Twitch, he has 19.1 million subscribers. His YouTube channel has around 24 million subscribers and 2.5 billion views.

Over the years, Ninja has accumulated millions in his wealth portfolio from streaming and gaming. Here is what else he has earned from gaming in addition to his Microsoft earnings:

• He earns over $500,000 a month playing games on Twitch since 2021
• In 2018, he shared that he made $10 million through gaming in a single year

In addition to this, he has earned a fortune through sponsorship deals, which we will discuss below.

Awards and Accolades

Ninja is now a household name for gamers and his successes have brought him many awards over the years. These include:

• Gaming and Live Streamer awards at the Streamy Awards in 2018
• Content Creator of the Year award at The Game Awards in 2018
• Named eSports Personality of the Year at the eSports Awards in 2018
• Twitch Streamer of the Year at Shorty Awards in 2019
• Nominations for several Kids’ Choice Awards in 2020, 2021, and 2024

Philanthropy

Ninja is a recognized philanthropist, as well. In a fundraising charity stream in 2018, he raised over $110,000 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

In April of the same year, he gave away nearly $50,000 in prize money during the first Fortnite Battle Royale Esports event. Out of this money, $2,500 went to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Later that same month, Ninja participated in the charity event #Clips4Kids with fellow streamers such as TimTheTatman and raised over $340,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

What Else Does Ninja Invest In?

Blevins’ net worth is mostly sourced from his tournament wins, streaming earnings, contracts, as well as sponsorship deals. In addition to this, he has earned money from TV appearances.

Sponsorships

Over the years, Ninja has signed many profitable sponsorship deals with major companies such as Red Bull, Epic Games, Electronic Arts, and more.

His partnership with Red Bull has lasted for years. In 2018, he signed a partnership with Red Bull Esports. In April 2019, Red Bull released a limited edition can featuring his image. The details of this deal are undisclosed.

According to Reuters, the streamer was paid $1 million to promote Apex Legends for Electronic Arts in 2019 for playing the game on his stream and promoting it on social media.

In January 2020, Epic Games added a Ninja-based cosmetic skin to the game. This was part of the “Icon Series” feature for real-life personalities. The details of this deal are also not publicly disclosed.

In addition to these companies, Ninja has collaborated with Samsung, Uber Eats, and other companies.

Ok, that challenge was legit! Excited to officially announce my partnership with @UberEats! If you missed it, don’t worry – I’ve got a special offer for fans watching my stream all night: https://t.co/ihHdf0ctL0 Pumped to be part of the @UberEats squad. #ad pic.twitter.com/UrDIuXx5Uv

— Ninja (@Ninja) July 1, 2018

Merchandise

Ninja has seriously diversified his income streams over the years. He operates his official clothing line called Team Ninja, offering a variety of outfits for gamers. He sells hoodies, t-shirts, sweatpants, and other items.

TV Appearances

Over the years, Ninja has been featured in different TV shows, magazines, and more. These include:

• Family Feud (2015) – featured in several episodes with his family
• Featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine (2018)

• Collaboration with record label Astralwerks to compile the album Ninjawerks: Vol. 1 (2018)
• Featured in YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind (2018)
• Celebrity Family Feud (2019) – returned as a contestant with his family
• The Masked Singer (2019) – participated in the competition as “Ice Cream”
• Nickelodeon’s Unfiltered (2021) – episode “Donut vs. The Volcano”
• Duncanville (2022) – episode “Gamer vs. Gamer”
• Home Economics (2022) – episode “Melatonin 10 Mg Tablets, $14.99”

Ninja’s cameo appearance in films happened in 2021 when he played himself in Free Guy. The following year, he did a voiceover for Hotel Transylvania: Transformania.

As to how much he earned from his TV appearances, that hasn’t been publicly disclosed.

Real Estate

The details of the purchase haven’t been disclosed yet but Ninja and his wife Jess purchased a 6,700-square-foot mansion in the Chicago suburbs in 2018, which they most likely still own to date.

Books and Courses

Ninja isn’t just an eSports player. He is also an author who has published at least three books to date including:

• Ninja: Get Good: My Ultimate Guide to Gaming (2019)
• Ninja: The Most Dangerous Game (2019)
• Ninja: War for the Dominions (2021) – a graphic novel

In addition to his books, he has collaborated on a 30-day curriculum with MasterClass in which he provides advice to prospective gamers.

Other Roles and Jobs

As of 2023, the famous streamer Ninja accepted a position with GameSquare, taking on the role of chief innovation officer to help boost brand recognition for the company.

What Can We Learn from Ninja’s Story?

Ninja’s journey from a passionate gamer to a multi-millionaire eSports star offers several valuable lessons.

His passion for gaming was evident from a young age. Despite the challenges and the early stage of the gaming industry, he truly committed himself to improving his skills. He spent 14 hours playing, even when his initial streams struggled to attract an audience. This teaches us the importance of persistence and leveraging opportunities to showcase talent. His dedication to his passion eventually led him to millionaire status.

Ninja doesn’t rely solely on one source of income. On the opposite, his earnings these days come from streaming, sponsorships, merchandise, book sales, and more. Such diversification is a key factor in his financial success.

By aligning himself with selected, major brands like Red Bull, for instance, Ninja didn’t only boost his earnings – but his marketability as well.

When the streamer moved to Mixer from Twitch, this was a surprise to many. However, it was actually a calculated risk he made to explore new opportunities and break out of the contractual limitations he was dealing with. Although Mixer shut down, this resulted in his most significant payout, not to mention valuable experience.

Ninja’s success is as much about his personal brand as it is about his gaming skills. He is consistently engaging with his audience and maintaining a strong online presence. This is how he managed to build a brand that resonates with millions of people.