The Business of YouTube

A weekly strategic lens for senior leaders into how YouTube is reshaping the business of technology, sports, music, entertainment, and culture.

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To your favourite newsletter, The Business of YouTube, brought to you by Paola Marinone and Bengü Atamer, founders of BuzzMyVideos and previously at YouTube and Google. We are bringing our exclusive insights from 20 years of experience leading strategy at YouTube and Google.

The "Co-Publishing" Revolution: Why Your Next Upload Needs a Partner

If there is one metric sports publishers chase endlessly, it’s new eyeballs. Not just retaining the die-hards, but reaching that elusive "adjacent" audience, the NBA fan who might like F1, or the Gen Z gamer who follows a player but not the club.

YouTube’s new Collaborations feature (rolled out broadly in late 2025) is the most significant organic growth tool we’ve seen in years because it solves the "duplicate upload" problem.

Here is the breakdown of how it works, the data behind why it wins, and the specific plays you should be running right now.

The Feature: "Co-Authorship" Arrives on YouTube

Previously, if you did a collab, you had to choose: Who gets the upload? 

If Manchester City filmed a challenge with Erling Haaland, the video either went on the Club channel (Haaland’s subs didn't see it on their feed) or Haaland’s channel (Club subs missed it).

The New Way: You can now tag up to 5 other channels as "Collaborators" in YouTube Studio before publishing.

• Shared Distribution: The video appears in the Subscription feeds of all tagged channels.

• Unified Metrics: Views, likes, and comments are pooled into a single video counter.

• Growth: Each collaborator has a visible "Subscribe" button next to their name under the video.

The Strategy: 3 Plays for Sports Publishers

We are seeing early adopters use this to hack the algorithm. Here is how you should apply it:

1. The "Transfer Reveal" (Club x Player) Instead of a press release, co-publish the announcement video with the player’s personal channel.

• The Uplift: You instantly notify the player’s personal fanbase (often millions who follow the star but not the team) that they have a new home.

• Example: Imagine Real Madrid co-publishing Mbappe’s first training session. You aren't just reaching fans; you're reaching every Mbappe subscriber worldwide instantly.

2. The "Cross-Sport" Challenge (League x League) F1 teams have been brilliant at this content-wise (e.g., F1 drivers shooting hoops), but the distribution was always split.

• The Uplift: An F1 Team co-publishing a "Pit Stop Challenge" with an NBA Team. You cross-pollinate audiences that have high overlap potential but low algorithm discovery.

3. The "Influencer" Commentary (Broadcaster x Creator) Broadcasters often struggle to reach younger demographics.

• The Uplift: A broadcaster co-publishes a "Match Highlights" reaction video with a major fan channel (e.g., The United Stand or AFTV). The broadcaster gets credibility and youth reach; the creator gets official footage access.

The Data: Why It Works?

While the feature is fresh, the data on this style of growth is concrete:

• 4x Brand Lift: Historical data from Google shows that collaborations with creators are 4x more effective at driving lift in brand familiarity than celebrity cameos alone. The "Co-Publish" feature removes the friction of finding that content. (Data Source)

• The Mechanism: "Warm Handoffs" The music industry mastered this first with "Rolling Premieres," a strategy pioneered by Vevo and major labels called "Rolling Premieres." Instead of releasing a music video cold, they host a Live Stream (e.g., a countdown or Q&A) and then redirect that live audience instantly to the video premiere. They use Live Redirect to auto-forward the entire audience to the new video the second it launches. YouTube data consistently shows that viewers who are already watching a video (active session) are far more likely to continue watching a redirected video than viewers who receive a push notification (cold session).

Our Verdict

The algorithm loves signals. When two channels with distinct audiences co-publish a video that performs well with both groups, it sends a massive "relevance" signal to YouTube.

Paola & Bengu’s advice: Don’t wait for the season to end. Test this on a "safe" piece of content; a training challenge, a player interview, or a community event, and watch the subscriber overlap data in your analytics.

Want to discuss how to shape your collaboration strategy, talk to us.

🚨 The YouTube Shorts for Sport Playbook

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You can also be a beta tester (free of charge) for the new feature we have integrated into FullScore to create Shorts from Long-form videos. 

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Watch the latest episode of The Business of YouTube podcast, featuring Paolo Provinciali from LinkedIn.

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