The two streamers Tyler “Ninja” Blevins (Fortnite) and Michael “shroud” Grzesiek are the big winners of the shutdown of Mixer. According to rumors, Facebook offered them new deals with even better terms, but the two star streamers opted to cash out their Mixer deals. Now they are “Free Agents”, allegedly millions of US dollars richer and can renegotiate.
These are the 2 Twitch stars that Mixer acquired: Throughout 2019, Microsoft acquired two major Twitch streamers and gave them exclusive deals for Mixer:
- Tyler “Ninja” Blevins (29) – the Fortnite star had 14 million followers on Twitch and was the largest streamer there. He switched to Mixer on August 1, 2019.
- Michael “shroud” Grzesiek – the shooter player was the new No. 1 on Twitch after Ninja, he switched in October 2019 to Mixer and staged it very stylishly.
From what is known, they were paid princely for these deals. The top streamers waived their ongoing, already huge Twitch earnings from donations and subscriptions to stream on a significantly smaller platform.
Apparently, Microsoft had put together attractive packages for the two that included them as advertisers for the Xbox Series X.
Mixer closes – Exclusive streamers are free
This is what happens to the streamers now: Microsoft announced yesterday that Mixer is shutting down and partners are transitioning to Facebook Gaming.
However, the streamers with exclusive Mixer deals, like Ninja and shroud, are not forced to go to Facebook. This was announced by the head of Facebook Gaming, Vivek Sharma, yesterday (via the verge).
According to him, it is the streamers’ decision where they want to stream now.
This is what the streamers say now: Another of the exclusive Mixer streamers, KingGothatlion, has already announced that he will switch to Facebook.
But Ninja and shroud have announced that they will think carefully about their decision.
Ninja has already updated his Twitch account, stating only that he plays Fortnite and VALORANT. Ninja’s Twitch account had actually been dormant since his switch. According to dotesports, Ninja updated his account just minutes after news of Mixer’s shutdown became known (via dotesports).
Ninja and shroud supposedly made a lot of money
This is what sources say: The well-known insider Rod “Slasher” Breslau says: Facebook supposedly offered the streamers Ninja and shroud an insane amount of money to transfer their Mixer contracts to Facebook.
It is said to be “twice as much money as the original Mixer contracts”. On Mixer, shroud made about $10 million and Ninja $30 million.
In a “renewal” with Facebook, shroud and Ninja would have had deals worth $20 million and $60 million over the coming years.
But the streamers refused to sign. Apparently, they were advised by their agency Loaded, the puppet masters behind the scenes.
Because shroud and Ninja did not transfer to Facebook, Mixer supposedly had to buy them out of their contracts and pay them the full contractually guaranteed amount.
So the two have now received a lot of money all at once and are free to change.
The eSports reporter Richard Lewis confirms these rumors. He also says that Facebook wanted to keep Ninja and shroud, but they opted to cash out their entire contracts from Mixer.
Ninja and shroud get paid NOT to stream on Mixer
This is what is behind it: It appears that shroud and Ninja are the big winners of the deal:
The money they would have received to stream on Mixer, they now receive for not streaming on Mixer.
They could have extended the exclusivity contract and earned even more money, but are now free:
- Either they can now negotiate anew with Facebook and squeeze out even more money
- or they can start a partnership with YouTube
- or go back to Twitch – and test their market value there
- or do something crazy with a possible different platform – PewDiePie was exclusively with a smaller service for about a year before he moved to YouTube.
Especially Ninja was constantly teased for being on Mixer, where he had few viewers. This seemed to annoy him over time. It is quite possible that he will return to Twitch. Then he would suddenly be the Twitch streamer with the most followers again, the new number one.
This would surely not sit well with his rival Turner “Tfue” Tenney. Because he is currently the streamer with the most followers on Twitch.
Many large Twitch streamers are probably asking themselves right now what the hell is going on and are annoyed that they did not also switch to Mixer. Because then yesterday would have been a big payday for them too.
Ninja repeatedly complained that he was teased by Twitch streamers for having so few viewers on Mixer. He justified his switch by saying that he earned a lot of money on Mixer.
Once Ninja reacted particularly aggressively:
Ninja boasts of outrageous wealth, threatens trolls to buy them homeless.
