In the last year he has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and performed as a guest vocalist on Fox’s The Masked Singer.
His visage adorned soft drink cans thanks to an endorsement deal with Red Bull. Ninja, who has been a pro gamer in one form or another since starting with Halo 3 in 2009, is well under way. None of them made the list through competition alone. In all, the ten top-earning gamers have a combined 270 million followers across YouTube, Twitch and Mixer and earned $121 million last year.
The blue-haired gamer has an additional 22.7 million YouTube subscribers and 14.9 million followers on Instagram. Ninja has 2.8 million followers on Mixer, Microsoft’s nascent gaming platform, which Forbes estimates will spend $30 million over three years after luring him from arch-rival Twitch last August. They earn their millions from leveraging their massive online followings into endorsements, fees and sponsorships. That’s because top-earning gamers are more influencer than they are elite athlete.
