Why This Creator Abandoned His YouTube Channel With 600,000 Subscribers—and Started Over

Jack Settleman grew a sport-focused YouTube account to nearly 600,000 subscribers. Then he made a surprising decision: Last month he stopped posting to the account, which had become popular thanks to some of its Shorts videos, and decided to start over. This new channel, under the same name Snapback Sports, focuses on sharing experiences at sporting events through videos that are about 10 minutes long, in addition to related Shorts clips. 

This unusual strategy reflects some of the challenges creators face as they attract followings for the type of short-form videos popularized by TikTok. After launching the first YouTube channel about a year ago, Settleman gained a following by posting short clips such as funny game mascots and NBA highlights. They were a hit: one YouTube Short reached nearly 200 million views. But the success didn’t spill over to longer videos, which often only garnered a few hundred views, he said. Such metrics risked turning away future viewers.