Logan Paul congratulates Ninja on Mixer “heist”
Ninja, imPaulsive, YouTube / Microsoft, Mixer[jwplayer Y7PB7YwV]YouTube star Logan Paul has spoken out on Microsoft Gaming’s shutdown of Mixer on June 22, giving a surprising congratulations to streaming star Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins’ reportedly jaw-dropping profit off the deal.
Content creators and viewers the world over were left shocked when Microsoft announced it would be shutting down its rival platform to Amazon’s Twitch, Mixer, choosing to merge with Facebook Gaming.
Ninja was one of the platform’s biggest stars and the first to jump ship from Twitch to sign with the site in August 2019, set to rake in as much as “$40 million over three to five years” as per reports from Bloomberg.
However, when confronted with Mixer’s shutdown, Blevins didn’t accept Facebook’s offer that was nearly “double” his initial contract with Mixer: Instead, he forced the defunct platform to buy him out at $30 million, as told by sources and initially reported by esports insider Rod ‘Slasher’ Breslau.
Sources: Facebook offered an insane offer at almost double for the original Mixer contracts of Ninja and Shroud but Loaded/Ninja/Shroud said no and forced Mixer to buy them out. Ninja made ~$30M from Mixer, and Shroud made ~$10M
Ninja and Shroud are now free agents
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) June 22, 2020
The news has undoubtedly made massive waves in the online entertainment industry, and has even seen input the likes of YouTuber-turned-boxing pro Logan Paul, who spoke out on the topic during a June 23 episode of his ‘imPaulsive’ podcast.
At first, Paul criticized those at Microsoft for moving forward with Mixer, arguing that such business models are difficult to realize when expecting influencers to build a community on a new platform.
“This model, time and time again, has proven to fail,” he explained. “The model where you back popular creators and hope that they’ll build a an entire platform.”
Lauren Kretzschmar, Get Good Press KitThat’s not all; Paul even gave a coy congratulations to Ninja in wake of his reported profits from the Mixer shutdown, jokingly calling his $30 million deal a “heist.”
“I also wanna give a quick shoutout to Ninja,” he continued.
“You played the suits, my guy. That was the greatest heist I’ve ever seen — and I’m saying this facetiously, because it wasn’t a heist. …the dude genuinely loved his audience, and they loved him enough where he felt confident he could honestly jump to an entirely new platform when it happened to not work out.”
(Topic begins at 56:09)
While Ninja has yet to respond to Paul’s felicitations, the star has shown ample support for other content creators who have struggled in the wake of Mixer’s sudden shutdown, leaving many without an audience or a platform.