Beginning 2024 with less than 5,000 YouTube subscribers, but with a strong plan in place from the 2023 season, we knew we had a huge opportunity to grow our community on YouTube when we selected Caitlin Clark with the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
Our goals were to increase consumption and engagement, grow our community and enhance brand visibility. We wanted to make the Indiana Fever YouTube a place fans could come to get every kind of Fever content and news they wanted.
We implemented multifaceted strategy that included both content diversity and volume. We used every tool available to us on YouTube, super longform videos, shorts, and we created a fun community with static posts and polls.
We turned our YouTube into a real-time platform posting game highlights as shorts, provided fans with longer form content during the postgame window with full game highlights, interviews and locker room access. We coupled our gameday strategy with an off-day content strategy that included in-depth practice access + practice clips for shorts and super longform narrative videos exploring storylines throughout the season.
We produced a wide range of content, including an all-access behind-the-scenes series, longform narrative videos, game highlights, interviews, personality-driven shorts, animated highlights and more, always giving our community a variety of content to engage with to grow our brand and capitalize on the rapid growth of our team and the WNBA.
Throughout our season (April-September), we were intentional with our volume, posting more than 4 videos per day in a variety of lengths to keep our community engaged.
The Indiana Fever YouTube was the most engaged and viewed YouTube channel among all professional sports teams in North America for a majority of 2024.
During the span of our season (April-September), we garnered 2.85 million engagements, more than any team in North America and 66 million video views, nearly 30 million more than the next closest team.
Although the WNBA regular season only spanned 5 months, the Indiana Fever YouTube channel was the most powerful among sports teams for more than 8 months in 2024 (February through September).
We went from 5,000 subscribers to over 100,000, a mark only one other professional sports team in North America has surpassed in its lifetime.
Our growth on YouTube was a testament to a dedicated team excited to grow our brand and our league. We paired an incredible opportunity with a plan set with purpose and vision.
We didn’t just meet the moment on YouTube, we shattered it.