It pays to be the best.
Michael Grzesiek, more famously known as Shroud, is a Canadian Twitch streamer, YouTuber, and all-around competitive gamer. He’s one of the most followed, most popular, and highest earning streamers and content creators to date, amassing over ten million followers on Twitch and approaching the seven million subscriber mark on YouTube. His rise to prominence is largely hinged on his exceptional first-person shooter and battle royale ability, including titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, PUBG, Apex Legends, Escape from Tarkov and Valorant.
Naturally, fans of the human aimbot are keen on learning his net worth.
Shroud started his professional gaming career playing Counter-Strike, hopping between several pro teams and moving to Orange County, California to pursue his full-time career in competitive gaming. Grzesiek will always be remembered for his campaign with North American CS:GO powerhouse, Cloud9. In 2016, Shroud helped Cloud9 place first at the ESL Pro League Season 4.
In April 2018, Shroud announced he was stepping down from Cloud9 and retiring from professional Counter-Strike. He transitioned to Twitch streaming full-time and amassed 100,000 subscribers within a year. After that, his viewership and success continued to steadily take off.
Shroud earns revenue in diversified ways. YouTube, streaming, sponsorships, merch sales, and partnered content (Logitech G Pro Series Shroud Edition) all combine to net the gamer a pretty penny. In any given year, Shroud earns between $10 to $12 million, while his net worth is estimated to be around $20 million.
In 2019, Shroud accepted a lucrative contract to leave Twitch and become an exclusive streamer on Microsoft Mixer. In June 2020, Microsoft announced it was closing the operations of Mixer and officially partnering with Facebook Gaming. According to esports consultant Rod Breslau, Shroud reportedly received $10 million from Mixer in the buyout of his contract in June. That kind of number offers an idea of the figure that Shroud initially agreed to take in exclusively joining Mixer in the first place.
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
In August 2020, Shroud returned to Twitch. His first stream back saw concurrent viewers over the 500,000 mark. Showing no signs of slowing down on the streaming front, Shroud averages around 50 hours of streaming a week—typically pulling off an amazing play in whatever shooter he feels like playing, making an excellent living doing the very thing he loves: gaming.
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