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Ninja
 

The Times Square Ball was inaugurated on New Year's Eve 1907. Since then, the world's greatest newscasters, artists, celebrities and others have descended upon Midtown Manhattan to usher in the new year every December.

New Year's Eve 2018 will be remembered for introducing another new group: Video game streamers. 

Tyler Blevins, a.k.a. "Ninja," will livestream Fortnite from Times Square on New Year's Eve. Ninja will stream for 12 hours -- solely on his Twitch channel (twitch.tv/Ninja) -- starting at 4 p.m. EST (Dec. 31) and ending at 4 a.m. EST (Jan. 1). His setup will overlook the festivities in Times Square.[YIELDMO]

"When I started in gaming, I never thought that something like this would be possible," Ninja said in a press release. "NYE has always been fun for gamers because it's a night where you have a widely accepted excuse to stay up and game, but there's never been an event in the mainstream that's actually built around that tradition. This is just my ultimate NYE Fortnite LAN party with some of my best friends and a few surprises that I hope we as a community can have a lot of fun with."

Ninja publicly announced this New Year's plan on Friday at TwitchCon during a Q&A with Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. He says he will announce guests on social media in the lead-up to New Year's Eve. Ninja will also be provided with Red Bull, as the brand is one of his major sponsors, regularly seen in the background of his home streams. Ninja was included in the "Red Bull Rise Till Dawn" event in July, which featured Ninja and others streaming Fortnite from sunset to sunrise on the 99th floor of the Willis Tower in Chicago.

As of Oct. 26, Ninja had 11.95 million Twitch followers, 11 million Instagram followers and 3.55 million Twitter followers. He recently made waves in the traditional sports world by appearing on the cover of ESPN The Magazine in September.

UPDATE (6:20 p.m. EST, 10/26):

Ninja has shared the following video from his social media accounts:

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