The Business of YouTube

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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 NFL's New Playbook: How to Launch a Pro League from YouTube

This week, we are breaking down one of the most significant sports-media partnerships of the year. If you only saw the "Flag Football London" headlines, you might have missed the real story.

This wasn't just a celebrity game. It was a masterclass in audience acquisition.

The "NFL's Flag Football Game on YouTube: London Edition" that just took place on October 11 was a joint-venture media event by the NFL and YouTube.

Its goal? To use the creator economy to build a global fanbase for a new sport before launching the professional league.

For any sports organization, CEO, or digital marketer, this is the new playbook for international growth.

Here are the hard numbers and strategic takeaways.

1. The Strategy: "Creator as Channel"

The NFL's goal is to make flag football a global household sport by its LA 2028 Olympics debut. The problem? Building a new audience from scratch is expensive.

The solution?

Don't just advertise to a new audience, embed your sport within their existing communities.

Instead of a traditional broadcast, the NFL and YouTube built the event around the creator ecosystem.

The game was streamed live on the NFL’s official YouTube channel (15.5M+ subs), but its true reach came from a "distribution multiplier" strategy.

• Simulcast Rights: Key creators in the game, like Deestroying (6.3M+ subs), were given rights to simulcast the event on their own channels, pulling their loyal fanbases into the NFL's world.

• Creator-led Commentary: The broadcast team itself was a hybrid model. Professional host Kay Adams was joined by top creator Duke Dennis (2.5M+ subs) in the commentary booth.

This wasn't just "influencer marketing." It was an integrated media production that leveraged creators as broadcast partners, talent, and distributors simultaneously.

2. The Talent (and Their Audience Numbers)

The team rosters were a masterstroke of demographic targeting. This wasn't a random celebrity mix; it was a formula.

Formula = (NFL Legends for Credibility) + (Global Creators for Reach) + (Pro Flag Stars for Legitimacy)

The "talent" was the strategy. The game featured:

• Music Headliners: Aitch & Gunna as team captains.

• NFL Legends: Ryan Fitzpatrick & Chad Ochocinco to give it "football cred."

• Global Creators: This was the key. Superstars like Khaby Lame, Deestroying, and Nella Rose brought their combined hundreds of millions of followers.

• Pro Flag Stars: Global ambassador Diana Flores quarterbacked a team, instantly elevating her own brand and the sport's legitimacy.

Team Aitch (UK/Global Focus)

• Captain: Aitch (UK Music Artist)

• Legend: Ryan Fitzpatrick (Ex-NFL QB)

• Creators:

  • Adam W: 20.9M+ YouTube subs

  • SV2: 2M+ YouTube subs

• Pro Star: Phoebe Schecter (GB Flag Football Captain)

Team Gunna (Global/US Focus)

• Captain: Gunna (US Music Artist)

• Legend: Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson (Ex-NFL WR)

• Creators:

  • Khaby Lame: 12.5M+ YouTube subs (plus 160M+ TikTok followers)

  • Deestroying: 6.3M+ YouTube subs

  • Nella Rose: 940k+ YouTube subs

• Pro Star: Diana Flores (Global Flag Ambassador, Mexico)

The Business Insight: The NFL instantly bought access to a combined audience of over 200 million followers (factoring in Khaby Lame's cross-platform dominance). They didn't have to spend a decade building that audience; they borrowed it for one night to launch a sport.

3. The Performance: Proven Metrics

While the London game's specific viewership isn't public, the business case is clear.

• 6 Million: The previous NFL x YouTube creator game at the Super Bowl pulled in 6 million live views, setting a powerful benchmark.

• 7.7 Million: Don't think flag football can draw an audience? The NFL Flag Championships (a youth event) recently attracted 7.7 million viewers on mainstream TV, with the girls' championship out-rating the boys'. The audience is there, and it's inclusive.

• The "Revenue": The ROI for this event isn't 2025 revenue. The ROI is audience acquisition. The NFL is building a global community before it launches the product.

The NFL isn't guessing. It knows flag football has a young, growing, and diverse audience that rivals traditional sports. The London event was about pouring gasoline on that fire.

4. The UK Market: Why London?

The UK is the NFL's most important international market, but its fanbase profile is different. This event was surgically designed to appeal to them.

• Total UK Fans: 13 million

• Avid UK Fans: 4 million

• The Demographic Goldmine: In the UK, 33% of NFL fans are under the age of 35. In the US, that number is only 17%.

The UK audience is younger and more digitally native. By staffing the event with UK-based creators (Aitch, Nella Rose, SV2) and global YouTube royalty, the NFL created an event that felt authentic to this specific growth market.

5. The Payoff: The Real "Product Launch"

This is the punchline for your entire leadership team.

The "Flag Football London" game was the marketing campaign. The product launch came just days later.

While in London, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell officially announced plans to launch new professional men's and women's flag football leagues within the next two years. (Source: nfl.com/news)

This is the new model:

1. Partner with a global platform (YouTube) that owns the target demographic.

2. Use creators as co-producers and broadcast channels to build a massive, low-cost "top of funnel."

3. Prove the media viability with hard data (like the 7.7M reach of the youth games).

4. Announce your new professional league into the engaged, global fanbase you just finished building.

The NFL and YouTube didn't just play a game; they wrote a new playbook for launching a sport..

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

Watch the latest episode of The Business of YouTube podcast, featuring Kike Levy from NFJ Sports & Media, previously at Meta and Twitter Sports.

Changing the Business of Sport: How Kike Levy and NJF are changing the game, starting from Volleyball

🚨 New masterclass: The Ultimate Playbook: YouTube Shorts for Sport

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. 

Do you want to test our short form clipping tool? Convert a few of your videos into YouTube Shorts, then join the waiting list!

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