Tyler “Ninja” Blevins showed up at a huge football match – the Champions League Round of 16 in Paris. The 2018 most famous streamer on Twitch was seen at the game— an extremely important match between Paris Saint-German and Manchester United — with Neymar, the Brazilian international football superstar. Neymar is PSG’s lucky charm and he is also the most expensive footballer in PSG right now. PSG acquired him for approximately $250 million dollars in 2017 – a world-record for transferring footballer at the moment.
The camera captured a moment between Ninja and Neymar, seemingly before the match. In the clip, Neymar shook hands with and hugged Ninja before sitting down. PSG also posted this video on its official Twitter account.
Neymar could not play the match and had to watch it from the stands because he is still suffering and recovering from an injury from a match in January. This famous Brazilian footballer has long been known as an active fan of first-person shooting games namely Counter-strike: Global Offensive and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Ninja’s appearance with a big celebrity like Neymar at a major international sports event shows that this streamer had another step in his effort of making esports more popular and closer for even non-gamers. Ninja had similar appearances on famous talk shows like “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” in the past for this very same effort. He previously streamed with Neymar during his New Year’s Eve stream event in Times Square.
Over the years, traditional sports teams have slowly been entering into the world of esports with NBA and football teams join the professional League of Legends and Overwatch scenes. PSG formed its own esports organization—named PSG Esports—in collaboration with the French media company Webedia in 2016. Since then this organization has built teams to compete in FIFA, Rocket League, and Dota 2 tournament.
Quite unluckily for Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Neymar when Manchester United made an incredible 3-1 come back at PSG home field, after being beaten 2-0 in their home field in the 1st leg.