Creators get ballin' Shorts views

April 07, 2025

TOGETHER WITH

It’s Monday and TikTok’s ban has been delayed once more. Trump has given owner ByteDance an additional 75 days to sell off its U.S. operations—and eager suitors are piling up.

Today’s News

  • 🏀 Creators hit the court with Shorts

  • 💼 Doing Things gets a creator exec to lead its next era

  • 🚫 Temp banned on Twitch? Your ad $$$ might go away

  • 📺 Get ready for a whole new history class

BALLER CREATORS

Sports fever is boosting creators to new Short heights

Golf, soccer, basketball, oh my: Golf is having quite the moment on YouTube, but it’s not the only sport on the up and up. Basketball’s in the spotlight too, thanks to creators like Jesser and IShowSpeed and an upcoming bilingual showdown between MrBeast and Uruguayan YouTuber Fede Vigevani.

In Tubefilter’s latest monthly roundup of the top 100 Most-Subscribed YouTube Channels in the United States, we saw Jesser—an all-around sports creator who started off playing NBA 2K and now collabs with the actual NBA—come in at spot #6, having netted a whopping 1.8 million new subscribers in 31 days.

A chunk of that subscriber growth is driven by his long-form basketball videos, but a majority is from Shorts. Jesser upped his short-form video output in March to 13 videos - the most he’s ever uploaded in a calendar month. Those videos are averaging over 5 million views each in the last 30-days (while a couple of his older Shorts are approaching 200 million views).

Jesser’s uploads are also sports-related and provide a data point that viewers hunger for game time across all formats. IShowSpeed provides another one. The 20-year-old grew his audience live streaming until he was top-tier enough to snag collabs with soccer legends like Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Like Jesser, he posted those collabs as Shorts, racking up tens of millions of views.

MrBeast ballin’: Both Jesser and IShowSpeed are fan-favorite frontrunners for spots in MrBeast and Vigevani’s upcoming April 25 basketball match. The showdown will pit Team MrBeast (all English-speaking creators) against Team Fede (all Spanish-speakers)—and Fede’s already thrown some jabs, claiming his ballers will be “way better" than MrBeast’s.

Jimmy, meanwhile, has begun recruiting. He called out IShowSpeed and Kai Cenat as his two top choices for team members. Considering they’ve both participated in pro/celebrity sports matches, we wouldn’t be surprised if they show up in blue jerseys on game day. And, judging by comments on MrBeast and Vigevani’s announcement video, Jesser is another frontrunner.

We also wouldn’t be surprised if all these creators take the competition as a chance to film more sports Shorts (say that three times fast) content. From the very first Logan Paul vs KSI match way back in 2018, it’s been clear that creator sports events are founts of content creation, fun for fans, and lucrative for players and partner charities.

Now, as we can see in our March Top 100, there’s another benefit: More Shorts content, which leads more Shorts views, which leads to more channel subscribers. Fans want to see coverage from influencer sports showdowns—and these creators will have a chance to provide the goods.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Learn from the Legends: Make your first $10K/month as a creator with under 100K followers

This year, the founders of 1 Billion Followers Summit announced something huge: the launch of Creators HQ. With $40.8 million in funding and a mission to skyrocket creator growth, Creators HQ is offering up sleek editing studios, UAE Golden Visa applications, and expert insights from industry leaders.

Click here to RSVP for “Yes, You CAN! How to Make a Living With Less Than 100K Followers”

On April 14, Mohamad Fattal—CEO of Alfan and one of Forbes’ 10 Talent Managers Making Moves in the Middle East—will reveal the insider secrets to making your first $10K/month as a creator with under 100K followers. This workshop will dive into proven methods for monetizing your content, building a loyal fanbase, and forming brand connections.

About the Speaker: Fattal has transformed Alfan into the leading creator platform in the MENA region, helping over 1,500 creators generate $80M+ in revenue. 

Fattal’s April 14th workshop is limited to Creators HQ members—meaning now is the time to apply.

Hit the link below to learn more about Creators HQ’s exclusive programs, facilities, and creator perks:

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

THE ERA OF CREATOR EXECS

Will creator execs lead us into a new era of entertainment?

C-suite creators: Over the last five years, people outside the internet bubble have realized what we insiders have known for years: Digital content creation is the next major entertainment force. It rivals traditional TV, streaming services, even Hollywood. With all this cultural weight behind it, the $250 billion digital content industry is commanding more attention and bigger investments—and now, companies are looking to creators for the path to success.

The latest is Doing Things, which was was founded in 2017 and now has a stable of over 40 creator owned and operated content brands, including Bob Does Sports, Recess Therapy, Middle Class Fancy, Overheard, and Shitheadsteve. It’s brought in comedian Jake Krantz as Creative Director of its newly formed talent and video team.

Krantz, who has 4.5 million followers across TikTok, YouTube, and Insta, first hooked up with Doing Things back in 2023, when he was part of its creator-fronted campaigns for brands like Coca-Cola and Kellogg’s. Now? It wants him to lead its original content expansion.

The best year ever: Doing Things tells Tubefilter 2024 was its best year yet, with revenue quadruple what it was earning in 2021. “[A]s we continue to grow, we are looking to expand our teams with creator talent that know how to develop authentic content that engages—both from an audience and brand perspective,” Doing Things’ CEO Reid Hailey said.

❝

I’m super excited to partner with Doing Things where I will be working with a team of like-minded creatives to engineer new and exciting ways of creating entertainment that will stand out from the crowd.

—Jake Krantz

Doing Things’ goal here is to plant Krantz right on top of its momentum wave, and have him guide its original content schedule. Its roster of creator brands currently publishes over 100 pieces of original content per day, generating “billions of views” each month.

Under Krantz’s leadership? Who knows how big it can get.

WATCH THIS 📺

High school history class was never this good

War never changes: With all the current tension, it’s the perfect time for a video about what happens when two allied global powers get a little leery of one another. Thankfully Big Tugg is here to provide. This man built his YouTube foundation on videos talking about why everything sucks, but he’s been expanding his repertoire lately, and we’re not joking when we say this hour-long deep dive into the Cold War’s wildest occurrences is top-tier educational viewership.

Ready to walk away knowing way too much about what the U.S. did to monkeys during the Space Age? What about the Brits and their landmine chickens? Throw in some explanations of various geopolitical relationships, a skim into MKUltra and Operation Paperclip, and you’ll have a thorough understanding of what led to the Cold War and what extended it—and why we should be paying extra attention to all of that right now.

Tune in here.

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Today's newsletter is from: James Hale, Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.