A quick question: who was the biggest winner of the Sidemen Charity Match? iShowspeed because he scored a penalty? xQc, because he saved one? Or the charity because it generated $6M in charity? The answer is actually none. The broadest smile was on the face of a 26-year-old American named Jamie Donaldson.

You know him as Mr. Beast. 

Yes, his feeble shot was saved by xQc, but he had reason to smile. Donaldson’s chocolate brand, Feastables, sponsored the tournament. Every YouTube All-Star player’s jersey featured the name ‘Feastables’ at the center. If that seems a surprising choice for a product launch, the data coming out of Wembley tells a totally opposite story. Mr.Beast might just have hit the bullseye with the sponsorship. 

The Sidemen Charity is more than just entertainment

Sidemen, a YouTube collective, comprising KSI, Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Behzinga, Vikkstar123, and W2S. The official Sidemen channel itself boasts over 22M subscribers. Add to that the individual subscribers of each of the seven members, Sidemen is an ensemble of YouTube’s biggest stars. The charity match has metamorphosed into an extravaganza that regularly sets and breaks records. 

This year’s edition was no different, actually.

• Over 8M people tuned in from around the world to watch the livestream.
• 2,758,151 concurrent viewers tuned in to watch the match. The total watch hours went up to a jaw-dropping 6,620,772.
• Tickets were sold out in barely three hours, drawing a packed 90,000 crowd to Wembley, Great Britain’s biggest stadium. 

But the number tells only half the story – one that can be told and retold in tangible terms. But more than that, Sidemen has become a cultural phenomenon, and that has intrigued market leaders as well. For instance, Revolut, a British Fin-Tech platform, partnered with Sidemen to land their product among the millennials and Gen Z. The result was 100K+ app installations in three months – the highest in Revolut’s history. 

“YouTube is more than just a video platform; it combines social-like discoverability and deep fan-creator relationships, creating a space that is unmatched for engagement and attention,” wrote Jordan Schwarzenberger, co-founder of Arcade, the talent management company behind the Sidemen. That’s exactly what Donaldson, aka Mr. Beast, leveraged. Thanks to his familiarity with the video-sharing platform and the audience, Donaldson knew this was the best opportunity to launch his brand outside the USA. 

Why Mr. Beast decided to sponsor the YouTube All Stars

Feastables sponsored the match to announce its arrival on the other side of the Atlantic. For the uninitiated, Festables is a chocolate brand established by Donaldson in 2022. Three years later, Donaldson is making more money from the brand than he does from YouTube. That’s saying something when your followers (372M) are more than the country’s population (345M). Fun fact: Mr. Beast’s YouTube subscribers are only dwarfed by India & China. 

Last year, Feastables had $251M in sales revenue and over $20M in profit, per a report on Bloomberg. Comparably, his YouTube channel and Amazon Prime reality show, ‘Beast Games’, raked in $246M in sales. More interestingly, Donaldson expects that trend to continue. Put plainly, the 26-year-old is betting heavily on his investment in the bar chocolate. In a note to investors, Donaldson hoped that this year, the sales from Feastables are expected to reach $520M.

Clearly, Donaldson expects the Feastables to pick up sales in the UK quite quickly. And by tying in with the Sidemen Charity Match, he nailed three objectives in one go: 

• Without any extra effort, Donaldson reached a 90K live audience and the millions that watched on livestream, at one go.
• By offering one lucky customer a chance to meet Donaldson in person, Feastables generated a massive social media buzz.
• Since YouTubers from completely different fanbase and audience demographics participated, Feastables was able to find a footing among a diverse audience. 

Donaldson wasn’t alone. Footasylum also partnered with Sidemen for the same reason. In fact, the apparel brand’s partnership proves the power of creator-led events in shaping consumer behavior. Their fanbase is diverse, vibrant, active, and engaging – they’re not just watching the videos or the match; they are living it. The savvy marketer that he is, Donaldson was well aware of this partnership’s potential. And as the numbers show, his gamble paid off.