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.

Which Athletes Are Winning on YouTube, And What That Means for The Industry

A data breakdown for every sports executive, content strategist, and YouTube leader.

Hey everyone, it’s Bengu & Paola here.

Fresh data collected on April 2026, covering 10 of the world's most prominent athlete YouTube channels, reveals a striking disconnect between athletic celebrity and digital performance.

In the evolving landscape of sports and digital media, the traditional boundaries between "athlete" and "content creator" have effectively vanished.

Feel free to DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE

The Views Leaderboard: YouTubers Beat Athletes Every Time

When it comes to all-time views, Jake Paul leads the pack with a staggering 7.99 billion views, followed by his brother Logan Paul at 6.16 billion, and Australian diving star Sam Fricker at 5.20 billion.

Crucially, none of these three are conventional athletes in the traditional sense, they are, first and foremost, content creators who happen to compete in sport.

The contrast with globally recognised sporting icons is stark. Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably the most famous athlete alive, with 78.7 million subscribers; has accumulated fewer than 980 million all-time views.

Neymar Jr., with 7.2 million subscribers, has managed just 212 million views. These are players whose social media presence on Instagram and X dwarfs most brands on the planet.

On YouTube, they are firmly mid-table.

Ronaldo's Hollow Crown on YouTube

Cristiano Ronaldo dominates the subscriber count with 78.7 million, more than triple Logan Paul's 23.6 million in second place.

By that metric alone, you'd expect his channel to be the most-viewed, most-engaged property in this dataset. It isn't, by a wide margin.

Ronaldo's average views per subscriber sits at just 12, dead last in the entire ranking.

For context, Sam Fricker's average is 890 views per subscriber. Jake Paul's is 381. Even Séan Garnier, the freestyle footballer with a fraction of Ronaldo's name recognition, averages 343 views per subscriber.

What does this tell us? Ronaldo's subscribers are largely passive, fans who clicked "subscribe" as a gesture of fandom, not an active audience returning for content.

Feel free to DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE

Sam Fricker: The Data's Most Interesting Story

If there's one name in this dataset that deserves a second look, it's Sam Fricker. The 22-year-old Australian Olympic diver has uploaded an extraordinary 12,651 videos, more than seven times Jake Paul's 1,606 uploads.

He led all channels in monthly views for March 2026 with 42.7 million, comfortably ahead of Jake Paul's 25.8 million.

His average views per subscriber (890) and average views per video (6.6 million) place him among the top three in every engagement metric, despite being a fraction of the size of Ronaldo in raw subscriber terms.

This is a volume-and-consistency play taken to its extreme. Fricker's model, high upload frequency, strong audience retention, is a masterclass in algorithmic discipline. 

Building the right audience matters more than building the biggest one.

Feel free to DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE

The Paul Brothers' Formula; And Why It Works

Jake and Logan Paul remain the benchmark for athlete-entertainer crossover content. Jake's channel averages 10.17 million views per video, the highest in the dataset.

Logan's average of 7.84 million is second. Both brothers maintain strong subscriber bases (21 million and 23.6 million respectively) and generate consistent monthly viewership despite relatively modest upload volumes compared to Fricker.

Their model is built on high-production, event-driven content; boxing matches, celebrity collaborations, controversial moments, each video designed to function as a standalone cultural moment rather than a routine upload.

It is a content strategy rooted in scarcity and spectacle, the inverse of Fricker's volume approach.

Feel free to DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE

Key Takeaways

The Dominance of Combat and Extreme Sports - PERSONALITY DRIVEN! The data highlights that personality-driven sports; such as boxing and extreme biking; perform exceptionally well on YouTube.

• Jake Paul holds the title for the most all-time views with nearly 8 billion, followed by Logan Paul at 6.1 billion.

• Even specialized athletes like mountain biker Fabio Wibmer and freestyle footballer Séan Garnier have surpassed the 1.7 billion view mark, outperforming traditional sports legends like Mike Tyson in terms of total platform reach.

The "Niche" is Massive: "Non-traditional" sports stars like Fabio Wibmer are out-viewing global football legends, proving that dedicated communities can rival mass-market appeal.

Production Velocity Matters: The correlation between upload count and monthly views is undeniable. Sam Fricker’s massive library is his greatest asset.

Subscriber Count is a Vanity Metric: Without consistent views per video, a large subscriber base is just a number. Focus on the Average Views per Video Index, where Jake Paul leads with over 10 million views per upload

Feel free to DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE

The Business of YouTube - Job Board 📈

We have curated what is open and available in the market, and who is hiring!

Happy job hunting!

Europe

Head of Marketing EMEA - SailGP (London)

Audience & Platform Growth Digital Studio - Sony Pictures (London)

Head of Partnership Innovation - Chelsea Football Club (London)

Head of Social Media - Chelsea Football Club (London)

Head of Social Media - Spotlight Sports Group (London - Hybrid)

Social Media Lead - Syntesia (London)

Shooting Producer/ Editor - Aurora Media Worldwide

Creative Director at Jungle Creations (Maternity Cover - London)

NORTH AMERICA

Deals Manager, Global Media Partnerships - YouTube (New York)

Director of Socials, Manager, Social Media & Content Strategy and other positions - Do Good Crew (Los Angeles)

Social Media Lead - Syntesia (New York)

Manager, Channel Strategy - Kids & Family - The Orchard (Los Angeles)

Digital Director, Digital Manager, Digital Coordinator at TKO (WWE HQ, Stamford, CT)

Global Social Media at The IronMan Group (Louisville, CO or Tampa, FL)

If you have a senior YouTube/Video/Social Media/Content opening, and you want us to add it to our Job Board, please write to us at [email protected] or [email protected].

The Premier League Clubs’ YouTube Stats for March 2026

You can download it here: https://buzzmyvideos.com/2026/04/15/premier-league-clubs-youtube-stats-for-march-2026/

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