Sean O'Malley was
supposed to return to the Octagon last month at UFC 229, but the undefeated bantamweight fighter was pulled from his match against Jose Quinonez after testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug ostarine. The Nevada Athletic Commission suspended the O'Malley for six months. O'Malley is also recovering from a recent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip, meaning he's unable to train. So what's he doing to pass the time?
Like most other 24-year-olds, O'Malley grew up playing video games and he's found a secondary hobby in live streaming. Speaking on
The MMA Hour, O'Malley revealed he's been playing the popular battle royale game
Fortnite while building his Twitch channel.
“So I’ve just been playing Fortnite, building my Twitch channel, keeping busy that way. I use my Instagram as a business, so I feel like I’ve been keeping busy in the industry. I’ve been doing a lot of kinda fashion pictures and talking to some fashion, so I’d like to dip my shoes in the fashion industry. I like to be in the entertainment business, so I’m excited to come back, and at the end of the day fighting is what I truly love to do and that’s what I really love doing, so I’m excited to be able to get back in the gym and start training.”
O'Malley is seemingly following in the footsteps of former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson, starting his own Twitch channel where he streams games of
Fortnite for up to eight hours a day. So far, this venture into live streaming video games has been quite lucrative. O'Malley has a partnership with professional eSports team OpTic Gaming and says he earns around $4,500 a month just from gaming.
“Right now I’m making around $4,500 a month through gaming. I just do it because I love it. I’ve been playing video games since I was a little kid, and I’ve had a couple people say, ‘Why don’t you stream? Why don’t you stream?’ I was like, ‘No one wants to watch me play.’ And I’ve been streaming for like nine months now and there’s some loyal fans in there.
“I only get 50, 60 viewers at a time, so if fans have questions, they come in there, and there’s some kids there that literally every time I go live, they get a notification on their phone and they’re in there talking, saying, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ I have a good relationship with my subscribers. They come in there, subscribe, and I’m in the UFC video game now so I was playing that a couple times. I’ve seen some people on Twitter like, ‘Why would we pay to play with you?’ It’s not like that. It’s something I do — it’s not just fun, it’s work too. I put a lot of hours into that to try to build that channel, so it’s work really at the end of the day.”
O'Malley's current six-month suspension is just the first step in the process. He still faces a maximum two-year suspension from the USADA, although he has been working with UFC executive Jeff Novitzky and USADA to identify the tainted supplement and possibly reduce his sentence. In the meantime, I'm sure he's doing just fine with his secondary income.