56M+ Views, 50 Minutes: 3 Lessons F1 Should Take from the YouTube FIFA Creator Cup

Formula 1's YouTube Growth and Proven Track Record 

Why Formula 1? Two reasons. One, FanAmp hosts driver interviews and an F1 Fantasy show, The Fantasy Formula, on YouTube, so the platform is top of mind. And two, last year I noticed Formula 1 leaning into the platform more, both with the announcement of their Passenger Princess series (which we’ll come to in a moment), and with their press releases.

F1 is quick to quote major growth metrics, and their YouTube strategy has undoubtedly played out well. Here’s their 2025 in a nutshell:

• YouTube following grew +53% (second only to TikTok)
• 171M video views in the United States alone
• Their most-viewed Shorts video of the year—the Miami LEGO Drivers’ Parade—now has 6.3M views

Then came Passenger Princess, a four-part series “where internet sensation Amelia [Dimoldenberg] learns to drive with the help of the ultimate instructors - Formula 1 drivers.” Watch any F1 broadcast and you’ll see celebrities hanging around the paddock. Hell, Brad Pitt was even driving an F1 car as part of the F1 movie promotions.

But that content sat on Formula 1’s channels. Passenger Princess didn’t. It lived exclusively on Amelia’s, alongside Chicken Shop Date and her other unique comedic content. That collaboration pulled in 289M views (of which I tallied 27M from YouTube) and just renewed for a second season with six drivers.

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The Creator Cup: Deep Like an Iceberg

Enter the YouTube FIFA Creator Cup, a single-day event hosted at the Wollman Rink in Central Park. No big FIFA stars like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo were playing, just YouTubers.

On one side of the hill were New Yorkers sunbathing, and on the other side was a custom pitch complete with TV cameras, a play-by-play booth, an analyst desk, and fan viewing areas—standing room only, grandstands, and VIP. It was a funny contrast considering how many big name creators were there.

For those watching in-person like me, the event was a nearly-complete soccer game that was entertaining from start to finish (we couldn’t hear the play-by-play). There was even a large screen at one end of the field broadcasting the match, and ad boards surrounding the pitch, rotating through the sponsor roster.

But like the World Cup itself, the broadcast was the real focus. The entire match was simulcast globally on FIFA (33.1M subscribers) and IShowSpeed’s (57.8M subscribers) YouTube channels, as well as on the channels of select other creators taking part and FIFA media partner like SBT / N Sports, TSN, and Telemundo. All told, I tallied 56M views on YouTube alone, and that’s before accounting for hidden viewcounts on partner streams and any views on other social media platforms. 56M+ views around a 50-minute exhibition match… not too shabby.

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Three Things I Learned from the FIFA Creator Cup

I’ve been to more races than I can count, from Formula 1 to IndyCar and IMSA, and even to a Champions League game, but this was my first YouTube event like this. And given my intense focus on content, particularly at the intersection of YouTube and Formula 1, I left with three big takeaways for F1 in particular. That said, these really apply to any other sport.

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1. Let Creators Be the Show

The Creator Cup pitch was a star-studded affair, but not with traditional FIFA names. Sure, you had icons of the sport Cafu (Marcos Evangelista de Morais) and Marco Materazzi coaching the teams, play-by-play commentary from Max Bretos and Kei Kamara, and FIFA’s chief refereeing officer Pierluigi Collina keeping everything fair, but the real draw were the creators.

Of the event's 270M+ combined YouTube reach, the 14 starters alone accounted for 232M. With that large of a following, it was smart for YouTube to let them cook.

It’s also worth noting that this event was live streamed. That meant active engagement, with fans chatting—and even buying channel memberships, Super Chats, and gifts—throughout.

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2. Don’t Reinvent the Broadcast, Leverage It

It was clear from how smoothly the process ran on-site that YouTube and FIFA were leveraging their production chops. The warmup flowed into the walkouts into the full match complete with a now (in)famous hydration break. There was sideline commentary and analyst desk commentary and play-by-play commentary throughout. There was even a trophy presentation for the winners (Team Speed edged Team Celine, captained by Celine Dept, 7-6). All of it was captured on TV cameras dotted around the pitch and from camera crews on the sideline.

While it was well-run, it wasn’t over the top. Rather, it was like goldilocks: just right. It took itself seriously without feeling stuffy. That’s because creators were allowed to work their magic, too.

Creators had their camera crews and social media managers on the field with them for warmups and cooldowns. IShowSpeed was livestreaming before and after the match, including in the makeshift locker room where he chatted with other creators and fans. It was a peak behind the scenes like what Formula 1 has leaned into with their post-race cooldown room segments that feel more raw and personal.

The beauty was that it was designed to let the creators and their audiences converge and cross-pollinate. There were even smaller creators showing up trying to make a name for themselves by appearing on the channel of someone larger.

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3. Big Brands Want to Play Ball

We met the players and saw the product, but what about the sponsors? Good news for YouTube and FIFA: they secured both.

Dove Men+Care and Lay's both came in as official livestream partners, with their branding prominently displayed alongside the Creator Cup logo. Both are Tier 2 sponsors rather than FIFA’s top-tier global partners, so their involvement is proof that appetite for creator-centric content wasn’t limited to just the top of the sponsor pyramid.

Then came FIFA’s global partner roster: Aramco, adidas, ADI Predictstreet, Coca-Cola, Hyundai/Kia, Lenovo, Qatar Airways, and Visa. All of them were incorporated into the broadcast with logos prominently on the field-level ad displays. There was even a LEGO trophy for the winners. I’d wager the Creator Cup offered FIFA an upsell opportunity for their partners to help them reach a wider, younger audience.

Whichever way you look at it, this factor is a huge positive signal for those looking to replicate the model. In fact, for Formula 1 in particular it’s even more promising, as many of the logos on the list already overlap with the sport or its teams today.

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Formula E's EVO Sessions: A Motorsports Case Study

All of this creator talk got me thinking of a motorsports flavor of the Creator Cup recipe: Formula E’s EVO Sessions.

Billed as “10 of the world's most influential digital content creators and global personalities getting behind the wheel of the GEN3 Evo,” EVO Sessions put competitors behind the wheel of real Formula E machinery, on a real street circuit (the same one that hosts F1’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix), to set real lap times in knockout-style duels.

The production itself wasn’t without its complications. Unlike the Creator Cup where players can show up and play with relative ease, everyone involved with the EVO Sessions had to be trained and ready to handle the consequences, because both the speed and the crashes came, and they were real (just ask Izzy Hammond).

Despite all the effort and cost required, Formula E touted it as a success. While their Season 11 figures weren’t entirely clear, total video views experienced 47% YoY growth, of which EVO Sessions accounted for 42% of the total. Just looking at Formula E’s YouTube channel (1/30th FIFA’s size at 1.2M subscribers), the videos there generated 7.2M views.

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Bringing it Back to Formula 1 (and Other Sports)

Call it a blessing or a curse, but while millions of fans watched a soccer match for the entertainment value, my mind was racing trying to put everything together. The final piece of that puzzle came down to articulating the content buckets Formula 1 (and everyone else) can apply these learnings to. For that, I’ll leave you with a simple framework.

Think of the content landscape in three buckets:

With all that settled, the thing I'll be keeping an eye on now is whether Formula 1 leans into the space where YouTube, FIFA, and Formula E have left their marks. My money is on it, and I’ll wager extra it’ll involve gokarting—all the stakes of creator-focused coverage without EVO Sessions’ repair bill.