After 13 seasons of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team, it was time to expand the brand’s digital and social presence where it previously did not exist. Our goals were to expand our digital footprint, elevate our content online, create custom digital video content and close the gap between the linear series and the rabid fanbase in order to increase linear ratings and digital numbers. Prior to season 14, DCC did not have a YouTube channel. Our biggest goal for that new channel was to build an audience and increase viewership of DCC content online, to translate to ratings success. YouTube accounted for over 17M total views across all DCC social and digital platforms in season 14, which was a 442% increase from views across social and digital in season 13. In the lead up to season 15, we vowed to engage with our YouTube audience more than ever before and create an "always on" upload process so our fans received scene lifts and footage-based compilations on a weekly basis.
Creatively, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team brand needed to provide a variety of content to feed the new YouTube fanbase. We provided fans with weekly episodic recaps of each episode this season as well as scene lifts and highlight clips of fan-favorite moments, chosen from assessing real-time social data. We pushed ourselves to become an “always on” content brand, giving fans access to original, digital video that featured prominent series figures Kelli Finglass and Judy Trammell and footage-based compilations focusing on themes that saw the highest view-counts on videos across the channel. Through comments, views, likes/dislikes, and Community Tab polling, we determined the type of content our fans wanted to see and provided more of those elements to them in video pieces throughout the linear season and in the off-season. For example, we found that video pieces that featured the squad getting fitted for their uniform were well-received by our audience, so we created longform pieces that touched on makeovers and uniform fittings. We took note of which dance moves and tricks performed the best with our fans and used those insights to select which sneak peeks and scene lifts to upload to the channel on a weekly basis. We polled our audience on which cheerleader's journey they'd like to see a long-form recap of and created those pieces based on their feedback.
Since the launch of the channel in July 2019, we've gained over 126K subscribers and have 73M total views across all of our content. In 2020 specifically, we've seen 38M total views on our content with a total watch time of 3.4M hours. We've gained 57K subscribers this year so far and continue to see growth as we move into season 15. Our YouTube community is constantly active through Community Tab polling, liking and commenting on our video uploads. Our comments section is filled with fans thanking us for creating content tailored specifically to them -- one commenter even said “I appreciate whoever runs this channel. Not even my family listens as much as they do.” The channel has exceeded all expectations by becoming a powerhouse for Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team digital content.
