Ninja struggles to keep up with pro Fortnite players on Twitch

Fortnite streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins proved his popularity when he played last week’s most-watched game of Fortnite with the help of YouTuber Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg. 

But last week’s Friday Fortnite match was actually down in Twitch viewership compared to the previous week. In fact, the eight-hour stream with PewDiePie got Ninja his highest viewing numbers of the year. 

Even more interesting, Esports Observer noticed that once PewDiePie left Ninja’s stream, the remaining six hours of the stream got Ninja only 777,000 hours watched. This may sound like a lot, but it was lower than his previous streams. The 236K concurent views, or CCV, that Ninja obtained during Friday Fortnite was also not the highest for Fortnite that month. Turner “Tfue” Tenney had a peak of 300,000 CCV last Sunday during his World Cup qualifying stream. 

Fortnite World Cup Qualifiers on Twitch

This raises the question: Are Fortnite fans starting to graviate more towards competitive Fortnite when picking which streams to watch? 

Throughout the World Cup qualifying weekends, Ninja hasn’t managed to place high enough to snag a spot in the World Cup Finals. In fact, most weeks he hasn’t even gotten close. Throughout, the Twitch star has managed to eliminate big names only to see himself knocked out, and has watched his duos partner qualify without him. 

Meanwhile, Tfue qualified for the World Cup two weeks into the qualifiers and has been getting more and more views on Twitch. His World Cup qualifier streams have been breaking Fortnite records on the streaming platform. 

According to Esports Observer, Tfue recorded 514,000 hours watched on Saturday and 623,000 on Sunday. Last Sunday, Tfue had his best-ever CCV average, 187,000, and a whopping 853,000 hours watched. 

While many esports insiders wonder if not having big stars like Ninja will harm the viewership total of the Fortnite World Cup, others are starting to speculate that not qualifying for the World Cup is actually impacting Ninja’s viewers, rather than the other way around.

As more young players strive to up their game and compete themselves, more competitive players might be starting to take over the Fortnite streaming community.