Manchester United enjoying Arsenal on Sunday needs to be the most important match of the English soccer weekend.
However it isn’t.
Regardless that greater than 75,000 supporters will head to Outdated Trafford to look at that Premier League fixture, the sport with the very best attendance wherever in Europe on Saturday or Sunday befell at Wembley Stadium in London between the Sidemen and YouTube Allstars.
Liverpool, Arsenal and United are enjoying second-fiddle, crowd-wise, to sides that included KSI, Logan Paul, iShowSpeed, MrBeast, Kai Cenat, AngryGinge and Chunkz.
The Sidemen, a YouTube collective with 22 million subscribers, bought 90,000 tickets to look at them at England’s nationwide stadium in opposition to a crew of fellow YouTubers in support of three charities: BBC’s Kids in Want, Shiny Facet and M7 Training.
Their greatest charity match but.
Getting into the pitch in type @Sidemen 👏 pic.twitter.com/iy2RjlYeov
— Wembley Stadium (@wembleystadium) March 8, 2025
This was the sixth time the Sidemen have performed an annual charity match in the UK, having beforehand appeared at Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium, Charlton Athletic’s The Valley and West Ham United’s London Stadium. This sport at Wembley, nonetheless, was by far their greatest.
In addition to the tens of 1000’s who confirmed up in particular person, greater than two million folks streamed the charity match on YouTube.
The match was end-to-end carnage and filled with moments that may little doubt go viral, whether or not that’s a yellow card being shredded on the pitch, or iShowSpeed scoring a penalty and doing his Cristiano Ronaldo-inspired objective celebration to the thrill of a sold-out Wembley.
The Athletic spent Saturday afternoon watching the spectacle…
So, who’re the Sidemen?
They’re a British YouTube collective shaped in 2013 by KSI (Olajide Olatunji), Miniminter (Simon Minter), Zerkaa (Joshua Bradley), TBJZL (Tobit John ‘Tobi’ Brown), Behzinga (Ethan Payne), Vikkstar123 (Vikram Singh Barn) and W2S (Harry Lewis).
As a bunch and individually, they’ve amassed a worldwide following of greater than 100million subscribers on their particular person YouTube channels, with their group web page, the Sidemen, having over 22m. For context, Barcelona, essentially the most adopted soccer membership on YouTube, have 21m subscribers. KSI alone has 25m.
Having began out producing video content material for YouTube, they now have an prolonged portfolio that features a chain of fast-food eating places referred to as Sides, a best-selling ebook and a clothes line.
KSI is essentially the most well-known member of the Sidemen. He has appeared in a number of boxing matches in opposition to different YouTubers, together with Logan Paul, with that battle in 2018 producing greater than two million pay-per-view buys, and has a music profession. These two are additionally enterprise companions in PRIME, a spread of sports activities drinks bought in nations worldwide, together with the USA and the UK.
How have they advanced and why are they so in style?
When tickets launched for Saturday’s charity match had been launched in November, they took simply three hours to promote out and greater than 250,000 folks had been in a ready room attempting to purchase them. By that metric, the sport may have bought out Wembley thrice.
When you think about that Munya Chawawa, one of many presenters on the YouTube stream, was not joking when he began the present by saying they had been about to “break the file for the world’s greatest soccer match with the smallest quantity of footballing expertise”, it highlights simply how massive the occasion had turn into.
Although given the YouTubers that they had signed as much as play within the sport, it’s no shock they managed to promote out Wembley. MrBeast, for instance, has greater than 370million subscribers to his channel and his personal present on Amazon Prime.
In different phrases, these guys are extraordinarily in style, particularly with the youthful technology which consumes content material through YouTube versus the standard TV platforms.
Who else was enjoying?
MrBeast, Paul, KSI, iShowSpeed and Cenat had been arguably essentially the most high-profile names participating. Earlier this week, Cenat appeared on ESPN’s First Take present alongside sports activities journalist and pundit Stephen A Smith, who not too long ago agreed a $100million (£77.4m) contract with the U.S. broadcaster.
Different notable figures from the world of YouTube included Sketch, Chunkz, Deji and Danny Aarons. Jme, a British grime artist and file producer, was additionally enjoying.
Appears like they’ve been working towards 👀 pic.twitter.com/PStZkV8SxS
— Sidemen (@Sidemen) March 8, 2025
Mark Clattenburg, a former Premier League referee and the person within the center on the 2016 Champions League closing, officiated the match.
How many individuals had been watching the world over?
A staggering quantity.
Inside 5 minutes of the stream going reside at 2.10pm, the viewers was simply shy of 500,000. This quantity solely grew because the match edged nearer to kicking off at 3pm. It surpassed one million viewers earlier than a ball had been kicked, with almost 1.6million folks tuning in to look at the beginning of the sport.
The manufacturing was slick and included three former England internationals — Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey and Eni Aluko — working as pundits. There was a half-time present from KSI, performing his Thick Of It tune, and AJ Tracey, a British rapper.
In complete, greater than two million folks streamed the sport on YouTube. Compared, The Athletic has reported that effectively over 4 million watched the primary leg of a Champions League play-off tie between Manchester Metropolis and Actual Madrid on Amazon’s Prime Video final month.
How a lot cash do they make?
These participating weren’t paid look charges, with the main target being on producing cash for charity.
The Sidemen initially paid out of their pocket to place the sport on, so meaning hiring Wembley after which recouping their expenditure by partnering with numerous corporations for the occasion, which this 12 months included Go to Qatar and YouTube itself.
Placing such a match on prices effectively into seven figures, with a portion of the earnings generated from the partnerships additionally going to charity.
By the point the sport was completed, £4.7million had been raised for the three charities, a brand new file for a Sideman match (final 12 months’s raised round £2m).
What was the sport like?
The gamers from each groups obtained collectively on Friday for some coaching, however in case you tuned in anticipating to look at a high-quality soccer match, you then would have been disenchanted — however that was not the purpose of the occasion.
Throughout the first 10 minutes, gamers had fallen over themselves and Clattenburg had awarded two penalties — one for every crew — with Joe Weller scoring for the Sidemen and YouTube Allstars’ MrBeast having his saved.
The sport lacked high quality, but it surely was frenetic and end-to-end. Within the second half, Max Fosh, enjoying for the YouTube Allstars, was booked by Clattenburg, just for him to drag out a handheld shredder and destroy the yellow card.
Max Fosh simply shredded the referee’s yellow card within the Sidemen Charity Match! pic.twitter.com/XtMGW4lnn4
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) March 8, 2025
The match resulted in a 9-9 draw, with iShowSpeed scoring the decisive penalty in an ensuing shootout, watched by greater than 2.5million folks, which the YouTube Allstars received 5-4.
. @ishowspeedsui scores the profitable penalty and the YouTube All-Stars are the champions of the Sidemen Charity Match🏆pic.twitter.com/UePUTQlW2L
— CBS Sports activities Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) March 8, 2025
Will these video games be taken outdoors the UK sooner or later?
Because it stands, there aren’t any plans in place for when their subsequent charity match can be, not to mention the place it is going to be held.
The occasion organisers level to the extent of planning that went into placing the fixture on, be it getting everybody’s schedules lined up or the capital dangers concerned with funding it. They take it on a case-by-case and year-by-year foundation, that means there are many variables that go into whether or not it occurs or not.
The primary query they would want to reply is whether or not they need to organise one other charity match. In the event that they do, the following query is the place they play it. The prospect of going abroad isn’t being dominated out, however it’s far too early to say whether or not there can be one other sport.
Although if there may be, you’d count on the personalities concerned to be fascinated with find out how to go one higher than Wembley on Saturday.
What was stated after the sport?
“I did what I needed to do on the market as a captain,” iShowSpeed stated after scoring the YouTube Allstars’ winner within the shootout. “The final penalty was as much as me, and I received. Within the sport, I had ups and downs and I most likely missed some objectives, however our crew received, and I obtained my first objective.
“Everyone seems to be about to be glad. Come on YouTube Allstars! That is what (Cristiano) Ronaldo did, and I did it for him. I really like my crew, and I really like my supporters. Pace sport for all times, let’s go.”
Cenat, who scored a second-half objective, was equally enthusiastic.
“I believe all people as a crew got here collectively and we used what we had at crucial moments,” Cenat stated. “It was all about enjoying collectively and doing the fitting factor, and we introduced it dwelling. Superb.”
(High pictures: KSI, left, and iShowSpeed; Getty Pictures)