Ninja has shattered the expectations of what a streamer can do in terms of sponsorships over the past few years by collaborating with non-endemic brands like Adidas to sell shoes and apparel.
His blue-and-yellow TIME IN sneakers released at the end of last year attracted strong positive and negative reactions from many. While some saw the custom shoes as a groundbreaking event for esports personalities, others saw the kicks as tacky.
Regardless of anyone’s opinions, the shoes were popular enough to sell out on Adidas’ website just 40 minutes after being released during the holiday season. And with that success as a backdrop, Ninja announced today that he and Adidas are at it again with a new pair of shoes coming out on Aug. 8.
Ninja revealed the much cleaner, subtle edition of the “TIME IN” shoe that will come in Adidas’ classic “Superstar” design.
While Ninja’s original collab with Adidas, which came in the Nite Jogger design, was a blast of color with nuance and detail, the new sneakers appear to juxtapose last year’s by keeping things simple.
The primarily clean, white shoes have small accents of blue that help to outline the iconic three Adidas stripes on each side of the shoes. Additionally, the phase “TIME IN” is at the base of the tongue where the shoelaces end and small gold letters says “NINJA” on the side.
There isn’t a price set for the shoes yet, but typically the Superstar shoes retail for around $85. That price could be bumped up for the special Ninja-edition shoes based on demand for his last shoes. The Nite Joggers that Adidas sold in December retailed for $150 and were selling for more than $200 on the secondary shoe market after selling out quickly.
Ninja’s offline activity may not be surprising considering his history of seeping into mainstream pop culture, but the streaming personality is yet to identify where or when he intends on livestreaming again full-time. After signing a deal to stream exclusively on Mixer last summer, Microsoft’s streaming platform closed its operations this past month. The closure opened the door for Ninja to court other platforms, like Twitch and YouTube Gaming.
While Ninja has streamed on YouTube for one session since his contract ended with Mixer, he’s still working on negotiating a contract with a platform to stream on exclusively. In the meantime, his internet presence has mostly been on social media platforms like TikTok and Twitter.
Published: Jul 31, 2020 01:51 pm