Mark Goldbridge, presenter and co-owner of football fan YouTube channel The United Stand, is celebrating a stellar start to 2025. With Manchester United enjoying strong away performances against the Premier League’s top two teams, Liverpool and Arsenal, Goldbridge is reporting 1 million YouTube views for watchalongs to both matches (the first a Premier League tie, the second an FA Cup third round tie).
Goldridge called the results “incredible engagement that would be fantasy to most mainstream outlets. The average watch time was 14 minutes, meaning for each of those 1m views the average time they are watching is 14 minutes. Imagine putting your brand or product in front of that big an audience with that level of engagement.”
Goldridge added that “concurrent views for both streams topped out at over 100, 000 live viewers worldwide. We passed 2 million subscribers over Christmas making The United Stand the first independent football channel to reach that total on YouTube.”
Launched in 2014, The United Stand has grown into one of the world’s leading football fan content providers and reckons to be “the most watched globally”. By comparison Arsenal fan channel AFTV has 1.7m subscribers while Liverpool FC focused Redmen TV is at around 550k. With a reach exceeding 3m (across all social platforms), it provides United fans an outlet to express real fan opinionated content. Brand partners cited on LinkedIn include BooHooMAN, Manscaped, Wash & Go – Spond.
In Q4 2024, The United Stand’s head of social and production Ryan Johnston shared how the brand had driven its followers on X (aka Twitter) from 250k to 2.5m in just four years. Key lessons included the need for consistent engagement: “Growth doesn’t happen overnight – It’s about showing up daily, posting regularly, and ensuring your audience knows what to expect. Consistent presence equals consistent growth.”
Johnston stressed the importance of building a community, diversifying content and being first to break news. Most of all he noted: “This isn’t a part-time gig. Most weeks, I’m working 7 days a week, ensuring we stay ahead of the curve. Back when I started, X wasn’t as saturated as it is today, but with so many other United accounts growing rapidly, it’s crucial we deliver the news first and engage across all our platforms.”
