Ronaldo earns Gold YouTube Creator Award hours after launching channel

Portuguese footballer Christiano Ronaldo has been awarded the YouTube Creator Award hours after unveiling his channel.

Ronaldo earned himself the most coveted Gold Creator award after surpassing the 1 million subscriber mark.

“A present for my family. Thank you to all the SIUUU subscribers,” he posted on his official X page.

In the clip, he is seen entering the room while showcasing the award amidst cheers from his children.

The 39-year-old opened his account Wednesday and after a few hours of posting his first video, 1.69 million subscribers had joined it.

“The wait is over. My @YouTube channel is finally here! SIUUUbscribe and join me on this new journey,” he posted.

YouTube has four creator awards which are only awarded after passing a specific subscriber milestone.

The awards are Silver earned after attaining 100,000 subscribers, Gold (1 million), Diamond (10,000,000), and Red Diamond of 100,000,000 which is the highest.

Other eligibility criteria for you to qualify for it include free of community guidelines violations in the last year and that the channel must comply with the terms of service.

The channel must also not have content that is deceptive, spammy or a scam, has never been suspended from a YouTube partner program or linked to a terminated account and the main content is original.

YouTube’s policy states that creator awards are for personal use and may not be sold or distributed to anyone outside the channel team members.

“If you violate this policy, you may be subject to disciplinary action,” it states.

The disciplinary actions include forfeiture of the award, ineligibility for future awards and possible termination of the YouTube or Google account.

Attaining 1 million subscribers is a huge milestone and often means a creator can earn a full-time living from the platform.

Creators earn money through various ways but the money from adverts that play in their videos constitutes a larger share of their income.

According to Business Insider, Nate O’Brien who has over 1 million subscribers earned $440,000 (Sh58 million) from the platform in a year.

He earned from $14,600 (Sh1.9 million) to $54,600 (Sh7.2 million) a month.

To start earning money on YouTube, creators need to apply for the Partner Program and meet specific criteria: having 500 subscribers, three public uploads in the past 90 days, and either 3,000 watch hours in the past year or 3 million YouTube Shorts views in the last 90 days.

Once accepted, they can generate revenue through channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers, Super Thanks, and YouTube Shopping for product promotions.

For AdSense earnings, creators must have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year.

Two crucial metrics for YouTube earnings are the CPM (cost per 1,000 ad views) and RPM (revenue per 1,000 video views after YouTube's share).