Dyed hair and a headband. Those are the hallmarks of Tyler Ninja Blevins. The case of the most famous gamer (player) in the world exemplifies the commercial pull of the great video game players. In the world of eSports (electronic sports) they are the equivalent of Messi for soccer lovers or Lebron James in basketball. They count their followers by legion.

In addition to earning around 30 million dollars (25.2 million euros) a year, Ninja enjoys great fame in popular culture. He has appeared in an ad for the Super Bowl - the final of the American football league, the most watched television event in the US -, has signed contracts for several books and has become the face of dozens of brands. He started as a professional in 2009 playing Halo 3 and for the next eight years he made a living playing other titles, until chance led him to Fortnite, coinciding with the growing popularity of the game. Overnight he went from having 500,000 followers to over five million.

“The highlight moment for Ninja was when the hip hop singer Drake, one of his big fans, appeared on his [direct] streaming, breaking the audience record for Twitch [Amazon-owned platform that allows retransmissions], with 635,000 users. watching and interacting simultaneously in the same chat”, says William Collis in The Book of eSports (Lid Editorial).

Last September, Blevins, through his Twitter account (6.7 million followers, more than 22 million subscribers on YouTube and more than 14.9 million followers on Instagram) announced his return to Twitch after signing a millionaire agreement with several years of exclusivity. The platforms fight with millionaire checks to have the best eSports players with them because that ensures them a worldwide audience.

Prodigal son

The return to the Amazon channel is the return of the prodigal son, since Ninja, 29 years old and resident in Chicago, had developed his career there until in 2019 he signed for his great rival, Mixer. Microsoft's decision to close this platform and migrate it to Facebook, led the famous player to return to his origins. “Tyler is an icon in the gaming community and his impact is incredible. The eSports industry is increasingly recognized by the general audience and in part it is thanks to people like him ”, Michael Aragon, vice president of content at Twitch, praised when the agreement was reached. This platform is by far the largest in streaming, with an annual growth in hours viewed of 67%. Like Ninja, other players like Michael Grzesiek have also returned to it.

A few years ago, the big representation agencies in the US only had a handful of gamers as clients, but now they see in their faces a shortcut to sneak into millions of homes. The stars of eSports are going to star in campaigns for television, podcasts or cartoons, according to Conor Beesemyer, Morris Endeavor agent, who tells Bloomberg: “We are going to see more and more players being brand images.”

At the end of last year, Tyler Blevins signed for the almighty Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which already had other gamers on its payroll. The image contracts that Ninja has signed with Adidas (the German sportswear brand has designed a line with his name) and with Red Bull are used as an example by experts of what is to come thanks to the boom in video games . Until now, e-competition professionals were represented by small firms, but now the big agencies are casting their nets over them. "Contracts like Ninja's are only possible if you have a large agency behind you," Morris Garrard, of the consulting firm Futuresource, told Bloomberg. The dominant operators in the field of representation are recruiting gamers in a double way: negotiating with them bilaterally, or buying small agencies that have famous players among their clients.

Forbes magazine estimates that the world's 10 highest-paid players earned $120 million in revenue last year. Much of that money still comes from trade deals to promote gaming-related products like headsets and chairs, but as its advertising impact reaches other areas like clothing and cars, its bank account, analysts say, will grow and grow. .

The eSports audience is young and very loyal to its stars. “That huge number of followers allows us to treat and think of them as highly talented public figures, that is, with the same approach with which we work with sports, music, film or television stars. It's a natural move for us to go into this segment in the next two years," says David Freeman, co-president of CAA's digital business.