“I’ve heard YouTube is where it’s at…”

These are the words Real Madrid and England superstar, Jude Bellingham, said in his first ever YouTube Shorts post, announcing a new weekly docuseries of his first year in Madrid. This came just weeks after the most followed athlete on social media, Cristiano Ronaldo, also launched his own YouTube channel, ‘UR’ – offering a noticeably different type of content to what’s available on his other channels. 

But the story here isn’t just athletes joining a new platform to expand their digital footprint. What we’ve seen in the last few weeks, from two of the sporting world’s most influential names, is a new and considered approach to their brand marketing efforts – and one that could be a game changer in using personal branding to build success off the pitch…

The landscape of sports marketing

The world of sports marketing is booming. According to Statista, the size of the sports sponsorship market worldwide exceeded $100bn in 2023, and is expected to almost double by 2030. 

The Super Bowl, The Euros, The Olympics, Copa America - it’s been a big year so far, and the appetite for the stories that only sport can create, and the talent at the heart of it, has never been bigger. 

What’s increasingly prevalent and fascinating is the evolution of how talent is being portrayed through media – at a time when the force of celebrity culture is increasingly permeating everything, especially the world of social media. This intersection is becoming more pronounced – and who players are off the field, who they’re friends with, and what they do and stand for, are becoming more and more important in their overall ‘brand’, beyond just their goal and assist stats. 

So, why YouTube? 

It feels really weird to call YouTube, the absolute powerhouse that it is with almost 2.5bn monthly global users, an untapped opportunity for elite sporting talent. But it really does feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface, let alone explored the channel’s potential in maximising sporting personalities’ presence. 

According to YouTube’s Culture & Trends 2024 report, which took a deep dive into fandom, 80% of fans (online 14-44 year olds who identify as fans) use YouTube to consume content about the person they’re a fan of at least weekly. 

It’s not casual consumption either. As highlighted in recent data, people spend over 48 minutes on YouTube each day – showing just how valuable this platform can be in capturing undivided audience attention. 

It’s also a platform that offers different things to different people, catering for all consumption habits. You can binge short, snackable vertical videos in quick addictive succession on your phone, or you can watch 30-minute polished videos through the TV. It’s not only social-first, it’s social-second too. 

And this is the key. YouTube as a platform understands that audiences want different things at different times. The absolute best content creators know this too, and not only create with quality in mind, but variety too. A content strategy that offers different things to different people means casting the net wide and increasing the likelihood of engagement – a particularly important point when engaging a fanbase on the global scale of Bellingham or Ronaldo’s. 

A new era of social content for athletes

What’s most interesting about this approach is how different their YouTube content is vs. what they post elsewhere. A look at the more recent video titles on Ronaldo’s new channel reflect this different strategy:

• “A day in the life of Cristiano Ronaldo”
• “The real reason I cried at Euro 24” 
• “The 7 questions I always wanted to ask Georgina”

These lean far more into the domain of ‘content creator’ than ‘sportsperson’. The focus in the posts relies completely on authentic storytelling, offering audiences a glimpse into Ronaldo the person as opposed to the star. It’s certainly a million miles from the drab “we’ll go again next weekend” content you get from the majority of players on other platforms. 

The initial results have been telling. His channel has amassed 58m subscribers in a matter of weeks, with some videos clocking up 50m views. The popularity of this longer form, more evergreen-based content, will be music to the ears of clubs, sponsors, agents, and advertisers. 

From the trailer released on Bellingham’s channel, the strategy looks much the same. It’s taken the winning ‘access-all-areas’ formula, from shows like Drive to Survive, a step further into focussing on one person - almost akin to a Taylor Swift tour movie - and packaged it up into a social media series. Usually reserved for big-budget TV or film, this large-scale level of content production and talent access is new for athletes on social media. 

Bellingham’s trailer looked like the perfect intersection of the personal (hobbies, family life, friends) and professional (events, fans, sponsorships, award ceremonies). It’s exactly the sort of easily accessible, snackable content that fans have been desperate for. 

Why is this happening now? 

Consumption habits are evolving, and so too is the media landscape. There are more people than ever on social media with a more insatiable appetite for celebrity access, and more channels than ever to find content on.

With its current offering, YouTube offers a pretty well-rounded answer: a platform with an engaged audience, a variety of formats, loyal and active communities - it’s a combination to please every stakeholder involved. 

What’s next? 

In a social media world where attention can flicker faster than ever, sporting personalities are increasingly looking to build success off the pitch – with strategies that build a brand in ways not purely dependent on sporting success. 

This push towards giving an ‘all access’ view of their lives, on a channel like YouTube where their fans are already spending so much time, can be incredibly lucrative. 

Getting this right, as I’m sure they will, could be a real breakthrough moment in how sporting talent can build and benefit from a digital presence. 

What we’re seeing is likely two best in class case studies. One in Jude Bellingham demonstrating how to build and develop off-field success through digital storytelling, and another in Cristiano Ronaldo sustaining success and relevance after retiring. 

How other leading talents follow will be fascinating to see.

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