In case you haven’t noticed, creators are taking over your screens in the days leading up to Super Bowl LX. YouTube’s flag football game featured co-headliners Druski and J. Balvin, TikTokers are hanging out on Radio Row, and Twitch stars are playing video games against NFL pros in the Streamer Bowl. On a more official note, the NFL has signaled its interest in creator partnerships by naming Dhar Mann as its Chief Kindness Officer.
The creator blitz won’t abate during the Big Game, either. MrBeast has taken the reins of Salesforce’s Super Bowl ad (and he’s hosting a big-bucks giveaway on Whatnot earlier in the day).
Why is everyone from Marc Benioff to Roger Goodell so eager to team up with creators? YouTube’s Culture and Trends has published a report that provides some data-driven answers. Long story short: the NFL is one of the hottest things in video right now.
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According to the Culture and Trends report, NFL-themed videos picked up more than 20 billion views on YouTube in 2025. That viewership sum is three-and-a-half times bigger than it was in 2020, and as you would expect, younger generations are largely responsible for the uptick. YouTube’s report cites a SmithGeiger study, which found that 56% of U.S. sports fans between the ages of 14 and 24 watch or engage with sports analysis from creators on a weekly basis.
As notable as those statistics already are, YouTube is likely to become even more of an All-Pro distribution point for the NFL in future years. Its acquisition of the NFL Sunday Ticket programming package has endeared it to football fans, and it kicked off the most recent NFL slate with its first exclusive broadcast of a regular-season game. With the big numbers in its Culture and Trends report, YouTube is making the case that it deserves the rights to more NFL broadcasts moving forward.
Much of the NFL-themed viewership on YouTube is driven by Shorts (especially around the time of the Super Bowl). If YouTube’s sports strategy is dictated by its viewership, it will need to prepare for another big event coming up this summer: the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Though YouTube creators are getting millions of views with soccer content, platforms like Roblox and TikTok have taken the initiative with official FIFA partnerships.
Before YouTube rolls out its inevitable World Cup presence, it will need to get ready for the NFL offseason, since the months in between the games are a fertile period for football-loving creators. YouTube noted in its report that 30% of NFL-related views in 2025 occurred during the league’s offseason.
