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Welcome to our rundown of the most-watched branded YouTube videos of the week.

We’re publishing this snippet of a larger Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report in order to analyze sponsorship trends in the creator economy. Any video launched in tandem with an official brand partner is eligible for the ranking.

And – as the name up above would imply – all the data comes from Gospel Stats. If you’re interested in learning more about Gospel – and which brands are sponsoring what creators on YouTube – click here.

Gaming. True crime. Family content. Tech. The top videos in our latest Weekly Brand Report touch on some of the categories that get the most views on YouTube. Its not surprising that sponsors are flocking to those tried-and-true formats, but this week’s list of most-watched branded videos does include a few surprises. There’s no MrBeast, no Ryan Trahan, no Veritasium, and appearances...

In his first open letter to the YouTube community this week, newly appointed CEO Neal Mohan dropped an eye-popping statistic about YouTube’s gaming efforts: Total views for gaming-related content crossed 2 trillion during the year. And as of December 2022, a YouTube rep told The Hollywood Reporter that gaming-related content brought in more than 500 million logged-in daily active viewers and more than 120 billion hours of watch time.

Suffice it to say that gaming content — which can span livestreams to traditional on-demand video — is massively popular on YouTube, which launched YouTube Gaming nearly eight years ago to compete with Amazon’s Twitch. Since then, the division has attracted top Twitch talent like Ludwig (Ludwig Ahgren), DrLupo (Benjamin Lupo), TimTheTatman (Tim Betar), Valkyrae (Rachell Hofstetter), Myth (Ali Kabbani), CouRage (Jack Dunlop) and LazarBeam (Lannan Eacott) for exclusive deals and brought gaming-friendly features like channel memberships and super chat to the main YouTube experience.

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YouTube has hired Leo Olebe, a games partnerships executive at parent company Google, to lead the video giant’s gaming division, a Google spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

Olebe will fill the top gaming executive role at YouTube roughly nine months after Ryan Wyatt, YouTube’s former head of gaming, exited in February to become the CEO of the Web3 company Polygon Studios.

At Google, Olebe currently leads the games partnerships team for Google Play, where he works closely with developers and publishers. He previously spent more than five years at Facebook, now known as Meta, where he led the company’s global games partnerships and business development and launched Facebook Gaming’s Black gaming creator program.

Olebe will join YouTube as the company has begun poaching a number of top gamers — including Benjamin Lupo (“DrLupo”), Tim Betar (“TimTheTatman“), Rachell Hofstetter (“Valkyrae”), Elliott...

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Ali Kabbani, the pro gamer known as “Myth,” is leaving Twitch to stream and post videos exclusively with YouTube Gaming.

The creator follows other Twitch stars who have recently left the Amazon-owned streaming platform for YouTube, including Benjamin Lupo (“DrLupo”), Tim Betar (“TimTheTatman“), Rachell Hofstetter (“Valkyrae”), Elliott Watkins (“Muselk”) and Lannan Eacott (“LazarBeam”).

Though Kabbani first launched his YouTube channel in 2013, Kabbani rapidly rose in popularity on Twitch, where he has garnered 7.4 million followers since joining in 2016. The gamer is known for playing titles like Fortnite and Valorant and is one of the most popular streamers on Twitch.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Kabbani said his desire to grow his career beyond streaming helped inform his decision to jump to YouTube.

“I’ve kind of had this shift of being a professional gamer and being like this dedicated, sweaty gamer kid, to being...