Table of Contents
Key Takeaways from Omar Raja’s story
- This is not an overnight success story – the guy started with YouTube in 2007 and it took him 7 years to pivot to creating content on Instagram and become popular.
- You don’t have to be tall to make money from basketball – Omar Raja is only 5 foot 5, or 168 cm – and he made loads of money from basketball
- Scratch your own itch; turn complaints into opportunity. Raja could not find many clips on Instagram about his favorite NBA star. So, he created it, which eventually became the most popular IG account.
- A new platform is a new opportunity. When Raja started in 2014, there are loads of video content about NBA players. But, it’s just not on IG. This is a lesson for us to understand: a new platform means new content.
- Being interested in a topic helps your content strategy. It will take a lot more than just copying and clipping content to get traction on IG. Raja collected videos of NBA stars on and off the court, starting off with Heat his favorite team.
Omar Raja Net Worth
Omer Raja net worth is $5 million according to reputable online sources.
Omar Raja is a popular Pakistani-American social media influencer. He works as a Talent and Social Strategist for ESPN. In addition, he earns income through YouTube ad monetization.
Omar Raja Income Sources
The monetization of YouTube ads is the main income source that contributes to Omer Raja net worth. He also earns a salary as a social media strategist for ESPN.
The different income sources of Omar Raja are listed below:
● YouTube channel (~$203,400 and $3.3 million a year)
● ESPN social media team (~$500,000 per year)
Income Source 1: YouTube
Omar Raja’s estimated earns between $203,400 and $3.3 million a year from his YouTube channel.[2]
Raja created his YouTube channel on 26th February 2007. He posts behind the scene content and stories regarding NBA games. In addition, he posts videos on NFL Pro and other sports. The following table shows the number of subscribers, YouTube views, and estimated net earnings from YouTube.
| Flightreacts YouTube Channel | Subscribers | Views | Est. Net Earnings* |
| Omar Raja | 521,000 | 439.17 million | $1.76 million |
*Note: According to Forbes, YouTube pays $3 to $5 per thousand views to YouTube content creators. We have assumed a $4 payout per thousand views in calculating the estimated net earnings of the YouTube celebrity above. [3]
Income Source 2: Social Media Strategist
Omar Raja joined ESPN in 2020. He works for the sports channel serving as the social media strategist. Raja is the official voice of ESPN’s SportsCenter Instagram account. He earns an estimated $500,000 per year for promoting the brand on social media.
Omar Raja Bio/Early Life
Omar Raja was born to Pakistani parents Ismat and Hyder Raja on 16 April 1994. His parents had immigrated to the US in the late 90s. He has one sister named Sabeen Raja.
Raja spent his early days in Pembroke Pines in Florida. He completed his high school degree from West Broward High School. Raja enrolled in the University of Central Florida majoring in business.
Omar Raja Career
How did Omar Raja get started?
Raja created a YouTube account on 26 Feb 2007. He posted videos of NBA game highlights. In 2014, he started an Instagram account called the ‘House of Highlights’. He created the channel to post interesting moments in sports.
The inspiration for the channel came when he was looking for the footage of NBA star LeBron James. He wanted to relive memorable NBA moments involving James who was leaving Miami Heat to join Cleveland Cavaliers.
Raja could not find any short video clips on Instagram involving his favorite NBA star. So, he decided to create a new Instagram channel that shared highlights of the sports game.
Initially, he would post highlight clips from the Heat players’ on-and-off-court activities, many of which were not widely circulated.
The House of Highlights started getting a lot of followers. His Instagram account hit half a million followers a few months after inception.
The House of Highlights produced a series of videos for Under Armour’s Curry Challenge where they posted clips of ordinary people attempting to imitate Stephen Curry’s moves. During the summer of 2015, Doug Bernstein, then the vice-president of social media at Bleacher Report, contacted Raja about working together.
House of Highlights is also credited with popularizing the Running Man Challenge and the Drive By Dunk Challenge, in which people drive around neighborhoods looking for basketball hoops, grab a ball, and dunk it.
HoH posted clips of Carmelo Anthony wearing a hoodie in 2017, which quickly became a meme known as “Hoodie Melo” and became a clothing brand.
The growing popularity of the account captured the interest of Doug Bernstein who at the time was serving as the vice president of the social media team at Bleacher Report.
Bernstein offered to buy his Instagram account. After some months of negotiation, Raja sold the account to Turner Sports (parent company of Bleacher Report) in 2015 for an undisclosed sum. After selling his Instagram account, Raja joined the company’s social media marketing team.
In 2020, Raja made the move to ESPN to look after its Sports Center account. The followers of the Instagram account rose by 25 percent a few months after Raja joined the team. Raja also contributes to devising content for the mobile app of ESPN. He also posts NBA game highlights on his YouTube channel.
Additionally, Raja hosts a weekly studio show called “Hoop Streams” that has featured Pau Gasol, Jaylen Brown, Ray Allen, and many more NBA athletes. House of Highlights has become the only U.S. sports media brand to surpass ESPN in followers across all social platforms in 2019. As of November 2019, Raja announced that House of Highlights was the most popular U.S. sports Instagram account.
How Kobe saved his life from burnout
According to Recode, Omar Raja launched the Instagram account House of Highlights with the hope of gaining 100,000 followers.
“Now we’re almost at 10 million, which is just insane,” Raja said on the latest Too Embarrassed to Ask.
There are also drawbacks to being a social media star. Raja hasn’t taken a day off in the past four years. As early as 2018, he was feeling burnt out – until he met Kobe Bryant while the former Lakers star was promoting his Oscar-winning animated short, “Dear Basketball.”
Omar Raja’s Content Strategy
Injecting your unique perspective in content curation
Raja brings his unique perspective into his content. It’s a lot more than just reposting or clipping videos.
“I think the moments that matter often are not all the time those dunks or those crossovers or those assists. It’s the moments that go unnoticed by the human eye or by most people.”
Quality over tactics
“My goal, in the beginning, was ‘I cannot have any piece of content waste your time. The content has to be great. It can’t be good. It has to be really, really good.”
Instead of overloading his posts with hashtags, a common Instagram influencer tactic, Raja focused on quality. This focus led to House of Highlights going viral and getting purchased by Bleacher Report.
“Since the content is good, people tag their friends and they tag their friends and then they tag their friends and they tag their friends. I would focus on the comments section. Obviously, you care about people’s feedback, but I’m like, ‘They tagged three friends.’”
Omar Raja Accomplishments
Omar Raja was included in the Forbes 30 under 30 list in the Sports category in 2022. [3] His accomplishment includes creating a viral Instagram account titled, House of Highlights and selling it to Turner Sports in 2015.
In addition, Raja’s role as Talent and Social Strategist for ESPN was also commended. During his first year, the company’s Instagram account followers increased by 5 million.
Omar Raja’s most popular YouTube video is ‘I SNUCK INTO NBA PRACTICE DURING THE NBA FINALS! #shorts’:
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Omar Raja Biography
| Legal Name | Omar Raja |
| Net Worth | $5,000,000 |
| Source of Wealth | YouTube, ESPN |
| Date of Birth | 16th April 1994 |
| Place of Birth | Pembroke Pines, Florida |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 168 cm, 5 foot 5 inch |
| Weight | 65 kg, 143 pounds |
| Religion | Islam |
| Marital Status | Single |
| Partner | N/A |
| Children | N/A |
| Names of Children | N/A |
| Nationality | American |
Frequently Asked Questions About Omar Raja
How old is Omar Raja?
Omar Raja turned 28 years old in 2022.
What does Omar Raja do?
Omar Raja is part of the social media team at ESPN. He is the leading voice behind the company’s Instagram account, SportsCenter.
Where did Omar Raja go to college?
Omar Raja attended the University of Central Florida. He obtained a business degree from the university.
References
[1]. https://www.vox.com/2018/7/18/17583268/transcript-omar-raja-house-highlights-sports-too-embarrassed – Omar Raja audio interview in Vox.
[2]. https://socialblade.com/youtube/c/omarrajaespn – Omar Raja ESPN YouTube channel profile on Social Blade.
[3]. https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2018/12/03/highest-paid-youtube-stars-2018-markiplier-jake-paul-pewdiepie-and-more/?sh=203b298f909a – An Forbes article about average earnings of YouTubers.
[4]. https://www.forbes.com/profile/omar-raja/?sh=7b1a65f85c98 – Profile of Omar Raja in Forbes Under 30.
