For 156 weeks (give or take a T-Series blip), MrBeast owned YouTube's weekly viewership crown. That ended the week of June 28, 2026. Céline Dept, a 26-year-old Belgian former footballer running a two-person Shorts operation, dropped 1.11 billion weekly views and knocked Jimmy Donaldson off #1 for the first time all year. She did it with football clips, not a $10M game show.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- Céline Dept collected 1.11 billion weekly YouTube views for the week of June 28, 2026, dethroning MrBeast from the #1 spot on Tubefilter's Global Top 50 for the first time all year.
- MrBeast crossed 500 million subscribers on June 12. Sixteen days later, a two-person Belgian football-Shorts channel outperformed him on views.
- Dept was on YouTube and FIFA's 25-creator World Cup roster (350M+ combined subs), alongside The Sidemen and IShowSpeed.
- Her viral moment was crying meeting Cristiano Ronaldo at Portugal's training camp on June 13; the clip has 6.9M+ views.
- She's the most-viewed female YouTuber in the world with ~63M subs, sponsors from Adidas and PlayStation, and a $15M estimated net worth.
- The MrBeast playbook (long-form, movie-budget, hundreds of staff) is not the only path to #1 anymore. Vertical-native, athlete-access, small-team just proved it.
What actually happened?
According to Tubefilter's Global Top 50 for the week ending June 28, Dept's channel collected 1.11 billion weekly views, her first-ever #1 finish. Two weeks earlier, MrBeast was still pulling more than 2 billion weekly views and, on June 12, had just become the first individual creator to cross 500 million subscribers, per InfluencersWiki. Sixteen days later, he was #2.
The accelerant was the 2026 FIFA World Cup. On June 10, YouTube and FIFA unveiled a 25-creator roster (350M+ combined subs) to cover the tournament, and Dept was on the list alongside The Sidemen and IShowSpeed. Three days later she flew to Portugal's Cidade do Futebol training camp and broke down crying meeting Cristiano Ronaldo, her stated childhood idol. The clip has racked 6.9 million views since June 16 and anchored a two-week viewership tsunami that also included collabs with Neymar, Erling Haaland, Gareth Bale, and Kylian Mbappé.
Dept's route to the top is almost entirely Shorts. Her main channel runs football challenges filmed in 60 seconds, engineered for the algorithm and centered on real athlete access. VRT NWS notes the channel has been posting football content since May 2023, with cameos from Bale, Neymar, Haaland, and now Ronaldo. Top clubs including PSG and Manchester City have collaborated with her too.
Why does this matter for creators?
MrBeast built the biggest creator empire ever with hundreds of staff, warehouses of props, and movie-sized budgets. Dept is a two-person operation making 60-second Shorts about kicking a ball. She won a week from him. The MrBeast playbook (long-form, high-production, maximum spend) is not the only path to #1 anymore, and this is the first time in years the data has said so clearly.
The unlock here is access, not spend. Ronaldo doesn't show up in your video because you own a warehouse. He shows up because you're the football creator every star's team wants their player photographed with. That's a moat MrBeast can't buy his way into for less than a nine-figure sports rights deal.
And she isn't a fluke. Dept sits at ~63 million YouTube subscribers per HypeAuditor, is the most-viewed female YouTuber in the world, and was the first Belgian creator to cross 10 million. Adidas and PlayStation sponsor her, with an estimated net worth of $15 million. This is a vertical-native, niche-obsessed operation running a real business.
"Thank you for everything, you're such an inspiration."
Céline Dept, speaking to Cristiano Ronaldo at Portugal's training camp
Where does this go from here?
The World Cup is a shot of adrenaline that runs through mid-July, so Dept's momentum is unlikely to break in the next few weeks. The bigger structural bet is women's sports. Deloitte projects global women's sports revenues will hit $3 billion in 2026, a 340% jump in four years. YouTube says the platform now hosts more than 40 billion hours of sports content annually, per Think with Google.
MrBeast isn't going anywhere. Watch instead for who else follows Dept's route: real-world athlete access, vertical-video-first, small teams, single-niche obsession. This is the shape of the next round of creator breakouts.
What does Fanvault think?
Dept is the exact creator profile the incumbent monetization platforms weren't built for. She has a global fandom, obvious authenticated-memorabilia potential (signed jerseys and boots from her Ronaldo, Neymar, and Mbappé collabs), wishlists worth filling, and a two-person team that can't run an army of ops staff. Fanvue would take 15%. Passes would take 10% plus 30 cents a transaction.
Fanfix takes about 20%. Fanvault takes 8%, so creators keep 92%, and pairs it with a full storefront (auctions, buy-it-now drops, authenticated memorabilia), wishlists, and a Telegram-native automation layer that lets a two-person operation actually run the business without hiring an army.
MrBeast has 500 million people to sell to. Dept has 63 million and just outperformed him for a week. In 2026, the second one is the more interesting economics question.
The monoculture cracked on a Belgian football Short. Everyone who spent the last three years planning to out-MrBeast MrBeast needs a new plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Céline Dept?
Céline Dept is a 26-year-old Belgian YouTuber and former semi-pro footballer who runs a football-focused Shorts channel. She's the most-viewed female YouTuber in the world, sits at roughly
Sponsors include Adidas and PlayStation. She runs the CEMI clothing line with her partner Michiel Callebaut, with whom she launched a joint YouTube channel back in 2019.
How did she beat MrBeast in a single week?
She collected
The World Cup accelerated Dept's growth. FIFA and YouTube put her on a 25-creator roster covering the tournament, and her clip meeting Cristiano Ronaldo at Portugal's training camp drove tens of millions of views on its own.
Is this the end of MrBeast's dominance?
One week isn't a regime change. MrBeast still owns the biggest subscriber count in YouTube history and typically pulls billions of weekly views. But it's the first data point in years suggesting the maximum-spend, maximum-production playbook has a real competitor.
The competitor is vertical-native, niche-obsessed, athlete-access channels run by tiny teams. Watch the pattern, not the week.
What does this mean for the broader creator economy?
The unlock is access and vertical-native content, not production budget. Sports creators, especially in women's sports (which Deloitte projects will hit
Small teams with real-world credibility can now compete with the biggest content operations in the world. If you're a creator whose fandom cares about a specific vertical, the door just opened wider.