The FS1 afternoon program First Things First initially started airing in 2017, albeit in mornings, and over time, it has steadily built its following on YouTube. Yet amid these NBA Playoffs, co-host Nick Wright declared that they would shut down the channel if it did not hit 1 million subscribers before the conclusion of the NBA Finals. Entering the Thursday episode of the show, First Things First had over 998,000 subscribers, and there was a legitimate chance the Oklahoma City Thunder could have closed out the best-of-seven series over the Indiana Pacers. As a result, Wright took to X and implored his followers to subscribe to the channel, and if they were already subscribers, to tell a friend to do the same.
Show co-host Chris Broussard also shared a message on X in which he claimed that Wright was under duress. With this organic promotion of the channel, the show gained approximately 2,000 subscribers to reach its goal. The final countdown leading up to this momentous occasion took place live on the air as the audience viewed a subscription ticker that slowly increased to the targeted threshold.
“It’s going to hit,” Wright said. “Brou, your Twitter is a powerful beast.”
As the show reached 1 million YouTube subscribers, Wright and Broussard fired confetti and a duo of royal trumpeters entered the studio in jubilation. Co-host Kevin Wildes acknowledged that there were several other programs with whom First Things First considers itself peers that have millions of followers, expressing that it felt “a little junior varsity” to have this scale of a celebration for this milestone. Wright, however, maintained his cheerfulness and exclaimed that the show was already on the march to 2 million subscribers.
“I’m on the march to 406 [million] – MrBeast,” Wildes said. Although Wright affirmed that was not happening, Wildes refused to take such an answer and continued to believe that the program could surpass the content creator.
“Beast – I’m still locked in, and I dropped the ‘Mr,’” Wildes concluded.
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