Who at the Sidemen? How many followers have they got? What is their connection with football and Crawley Town?

Crawley are kicking off their 2022/23 FA Cup campaign on the weekend of November 5 and should the scouts choose a player, they’ll be selected as a substitute for that fixture.

But who are the Sidemen? And why would a League Two side, want to sign them for an occasion as big as the FA Cup?

The Sidemen

Established in 2013, the Sidemen are a group of individuals that initially rose to fame from uploading themselves playing video games on YouTube. Before the group was created, the eventual seven members, ended up meeting each other online/through past friendships and started playing the likes of Grand Theft Auto Five, FIFA and Call of Duty together. Millions began watching their content and soon enough, fans started to call them the Sidemen.

Almost ten years later, the Sidemen have become the arguably the biggest name British social media has to offer. In 2015, the group began transitioning solely away from consoles and created the Sidemen channel, which itself has 16.5 million subscribers and has amassed over four billion views. Instead of just playing games, now the Sidemen are more widely known for their hilarious personalities portrayed in some of the craziest and inventive videos on the web. In total, all their YouTube channels combined have gathered over 93 million followers.

They consist of best friends Olajide "KSI" Olatunji, Simon "Miniminter" Minter, Joshua "Zerkaa" Bradley, Tobit "TBJZL" Brown, Ethan "Behzinga" Payne and Vikram "Vikkstar123" Barn.

SEE ALSO: Crawley Town scouts set to evaluate players at charity clash with a view to recruiting new talent for FA Cup tie / Crawley Town head coach Kevin Betsy: Sidemen partnership will help us in so many areas / Former Crawley Town investor and supporters react to latest WAGMI United decision / Sidemen partnership will 'bring eyes to what Crawley is doing', says co-owner Hunter Orrell

But what do the Sidemen have to do with football?

In 2015 the group launched their official Sidemen YouTube channel with a charity football match. As one of the first on the internet, the Sidemen live streamed themselves playing against other YouTube personalities at Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium. Alongside 15,000 spectators at the ground, the match gained 26 million views on YouTube and raised over £100,000 for the Saints Foundation.

Following their success, the Sidemen went on to host two more charity matches in 2017 and 2018 at Charlton Athletics’ ground, The Valley. Despite the success also generated from those games, the group had a four-year break from the event. However, it was announced earlier this year that on the 24th of September, their charity matches will return at The Valley once again. And this time, it’s bigger than ever before.

In previous years, the Sidemen haven’t quite sold out the whole Charlton Stadium but did gather huge crowds. This time though, tickets have sold out with the inclusion of some of the internet’s biggest names. For perspective, this season, Charlton’s highest attendance for a game was around 17,000, the Sidemen could expect around 10,000 more than that.

Why have the Sidemen teamed up with Crawley Town?

This season, Crawley Town’s new owners, WAGMI United are on a mission to make themselves the ‘internets team’ and therefore gather a large online following. With the followers the Sidemen already have added to other stars attending this weekend’s event, getting Crawley’s name amongst the conversation could have a huge impact on attracting their desired online attention.

There’s no doubt, the FA Cup is a massive fixture for Crawley as already stated by their manager, Kevin Betsy following the news. However, the more money and attention Crawley can gather online, the more investment the owners can justify putting into the club.

The partnership is a huge step for Crawley Town if their owners want to propel them into the online world.