The Fortnite streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has outperformed footballers like Ronaldo and Neymar in terms of social media interactions. With over 150 million interactions, he was the first gamer to be considered the most influential athlete in the world in April 2018.
Ninja reached number 1 among athletes with the most interactions on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook in April 2018. This is shown in a top list created by Hookit for athletes. Hookit determines the value of sponsor partnerships in social and digital media. The ranking of this list is based on the number of interactions.
Who is Ninja? “Ninja” is one of the most successful streamers on Twitch.TV. He primarily plays Fortnite in his videos and streams and is considered one of the best players worldwide.
How did Ninja make it into mainstream media? Recently, the streamer broke the record for the most simultaneous viewers when he played Fortnite with the famous rapper and singer “Drake.” This attracted over 600,000 people simultaneously to the livestream. With a live event in Las Vegas, Ninja was able to top that number. Additionally, Fortnite attracts a large number of “non-gamers” and mainstream media like Pro7 have already reported on the game.
How has Ninja achieved so many interactions? Compared to football stars Ronaldo or Neymar, Ninja posts extremely frequently on social networks. While Ronaldo has just 51 posts, Ninja has 416. In terms of total followers, Ninja with 4 million is relatively small; Cristiano Ronaldo leads with 318.9 million accounts, followed by Neymar with 191.7 million and Messi with 181 million.
Ninja is the first and only e-sports athlete among top athletes
Already in March, Ninja made it into the top 10 athletes at Hookit. It should be noted that all other athletes here come from “traditional” sports such as football, basketball, cricket, or American football.
In April 2018, the top 5 athletes looked like this:
- 1. Tyler “Ninja” Blevins – ESport
- 2. Cristiano Ronaldo – Football
- 3. Virat Kohli – Cricket
- 4. Sergio Ramos – Football
- 5. Shaquille O’Neal – Basketball
What does this top list mean? This top list essentially indicates which athletes are the most relevant on the internet. These athletes get the most reach on social media and thus reach the most people. This makes them interesting for sponsors and shows what influence they can exert.
The fact that now an esports athlete like Ninja dominates the list shows that gaming is becoming increasingly relevant in the mainstream. This is also evidenced by the immense success of Fortnite: Battle Royale. Platforms like Twitch.tv, which reach millions worldwide over the internet and are designed for gamers, have certainly contributed to this.
Is Ninja an athlete or an entertainer?
Whether Ninja can be considered a full-fledged athlete is certainly up for debate. For the most part, he is known at this point as a streamer for Fortnite: Battle Royale on Twitch.TV. In the streams, Ninja has impressive performances and shows that he is a pro in the game. However, the streams mainly serve entertainment purposes, and Ninja has also established himself as a personality in this realm.
Currently, there is no official eSports league for Fortnite, as is the case with League of Legends. Ninja has already played Fortnite in a large tournament where he also broke viewer records. However, this was dedicated to a charitable purpose and was not an official eSports tournament. Ninja was originally an eSport athlete for the shooter Halo. He has also had successes as an eSport player in H1Z1 and most recently in PUBG. However, this is not what one associates with the streamer today.
