As you might expect, the first meeting between the most-followed individual on Instagram and the most-followed individual on YouTube produced blockbuster results. Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo invited leading creator MrBeast to join him on his UR Cristiano channel, and the resulting collab is destined for the YouTube record books.
Ronaldo signaled his interest in YouTube content back in August, when he launched the UR Cristiano channel as a home for personal content featuring members of his family. Since Ronaldo sits at the top of the Instagram leaderboard with more than 636 million Instagram followers, he became a contender for multiple YouTube records as soon as he launched his channel. Case in point: UR Ronaldo only needed one day to attract more than seven million subscribers.
Anyone who flirts with the YouTube record books is going to come into contact with MrBeast before long, and that’s what happened with Ronaldo. As UR Cristiano roared up the YouTube charts (it has more than 67 million “siuubscribers” at the time of this post), its titular star expressed his desire to become the most-subscribed creator on YouTube. “Subscribers and records,” he said, “you have to put these things into perspective, but I want to beat them.”
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That boast caught Jimmy Donaldson‘s attention. The man known as MrBeast acknowledged that Ronaldo is “crushing it,” but he also said that he would not relinquish YouTube’s subscriber crown “without a fight.”
Fast forward three months: As Ronaldo continues to crush the YouTube game, he uploads a video depicting the arrival of a mystery guest star at his home. Though he tried to keep his collaborator secret, internet sleuths figured out his plan with help from some leaked images. The Ronaldo/MrBeast collab dropped a few days later, and within eight hours, it had collected 10 million views and soared to the #1 position on YouTube’s Trending tab.
The setup leading to this collab is so compelling that the actual content of the video is almost an afterthought, but MrBeast did share some YouTube-related tips with his upstart rival. He advised Ronaldo to switched from open-mouthed thumbnails to close-mouthed thumbnails, as MrBeast did earlier this year. He also suggested that the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star use his connections to bring more famous collaborators to his channel. One obvious choice MrBeast named is iShowSpeed, a Ronaldo superfan who has not yet shown up on the UR Cristiano channel.
Ronaldo’s fans have other ideas. In the comments of his MrBeast video, they claimed that he could truly break the internet by releasing a video alongside his greatest rival, .
But the actual internet-breaking clip featuring Ronaldo may have already been filmed. In a YouTube comment of his own, MrBeast noted that Ronaldo will appear in a video that will go up on the main MrBeast channel on November 30. The second collab between the pair will need to be massive to eclipse some previous MrBeast hits, but when these two world-beaters team up, anything is possible.
