How Patrick Bäurer built a YouTube career with football freestyling
Jun 30, 2023 – minute read
Patrick Bäurer, also known online as @Patrickbfree, is a German football freestyler who used YouTube to turn his passion into his profession. He shares his life and insane skills with more than 3 million subscribers every day, turning viewers into football fans.
Media is a great way to introduce new sports and hobbies to those who may never otherwise be exposed to it, so we asked Patrick to share more about how he builds his brand and how he keeps viewers engaged — sports lovers or otherwise.
Hi Patrick! Tell us about the journey of building your brand and how it all started.
I started Football Freestyle at the age of 13 after watching videos of Ronaldinho doing some football tricks. The first trick I wanted to learn was the “Around the World” and after hundreds of tries I finally did it. This motivated me so much that I wanted to learn more and more tricks.
Every month I recorded my new moves and tricks, created a video and shared it with my friends and people from all over the world were watching it. This was a big motivation and helped me a lot to get better every single day. Some years later I set my first Guinness World Record and became Vice World Champion in Football Freestyle. Another big milestone was in 2022, when I hit 1 million subscribers, and in the same year also 2 million. And now we've soared past 3 million!
It takes time in whatever you do. If it was easy, everybody would do it. It took me more than 4 years of practice to perform my first Football Freestyle Live Show in front of 200 people. ”
Patrick BäurerWere there any challenges you faced along the way?
It is normal that it takes time in whatever you do. If it was easy, everybody would do it. It took me more than 4 years of practice to perform my first Football Freestyle Live Show in front of 200 people. It was not easy during the beginning because you fail so often. For some tricks it took me several hours and more than 1,000 fails to finally land this trick. If I wouldn’t have had a goal at this time to set Guinness World Records and become one of the best, I would have probably given up.
I've heard people say that my freestyle trainings is a waste of time and I should do something useful instead kicking a football for more than two hours every day. But I believed in myself and that’s the most important. Don’t let people decide your future, prove them wrong.
What are some milestones you're most proud of?
Meeting and freestyling with football pros like Mbappé, Neymar, Schweinsteiger, Lahm and many more was definitely an experience I will never forget. The clips I recorded and posted on YouTube I could watch every day. That’s for me the proof that hard work pays off and that everybody should follow their dreams. Nothing is impossible. Also setting several Guinness World Records, competing at the World Championships, performing on the biggest TV shows worldwide motivates me to push more and more to achieve even bigger goals.
Reaching and inspiring people is my biggest goal and with multiple millions of subscribers on YouTube, we set new milestones every month. I met @aguskafree, the 4 times World Champion in Football Freestyle, on my journey and together we also set some World Records and performed shows all over show with our duo show.
What have you learned since building a brand?
Be kind, be patience, work hard, set big goals, believe in yourself. Those are the key elements for me if you want to be successful. It takes time to build a brand, in the beginning I had for several months less than 50 views on my videos, but I appreciated that some people are interested what I am doing. Never compare yourself with other people or channels – everybody is unique and special.
How has being a YouTube creator helped open up doors for you to pursue this business and turn it into a reality?
YouTube was and is a huge help for me to follow and live my dream. Through this platform I can reach millions of people all over the world. Many people reach out to me because they watch my videos and inviting me for once in a lifetime opportunity, e.g. playing against FC Bayern München, meeting Mbappé, Neymar, setting official Guinness World Records, etc. I am really thankful for the support of YouTube and this possibility.
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How has building a brand helped you grow as a content creator? What are your strategies between the two?
I do what I love the most, doing Freestyle Football tricks. I try to combine those tricks with different challenges to entertain people and also predict big football matches on our Multiball, that’s a virtual tic-tac-toe game. The audience love those videos and this helps me to grow as a content creator and to build my brand. The interaction is really important, that’s why I do Q&A very often and make a survey every single day to find out the interest and what my subscribers want to watch next. Based on this, I record, create and post the videos.