Bas Teetema, a successful Dutch professional cyclist and YouTube video creator, is launching a UCI Continental team with international bookmaker Unibet as its sponsor.

The TDT-Unibet Cycling Team will be registered in the third tier of the sport in 2023, and the management team has high ambitions for its future.

"Our mission is to progress to the Pro Continental Cycling level and compete in the biggest cycling races in the world," Tietema said in a recent video.

A former rider for the BMC Development Team turned popular YouTuber, Tietema's channel has garnered more than 24 million views and 150,000 channel subscribers in just a few years.

The Tour de Tietema channel not only showcases the sport's top riders in a teasing exchange, but also documents the creator's return to the pro peloton with the Belgian professional team Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB.

Tietema will race as part of his own TDT-Unibet team in 2023, and Englishman Harry Tanfield (Ribble-Weldite) has reportedly signed on with them as one of five riders.

Former Dutch national track coach Hugo Haak will oversee the team, and the race program will take place primarily in Belgium and the Netherlands.

"We are very proud to be working with the Tour de Tietema. Their dedication and boldness to do something different is a great inspiration," said Lennart Kessels, Dutch general manager of the Kindred Group, the online gambling operator that owns Unibet.

"We are honored to help them turn their long-held dream of starting a cycling team into a reality. The world of cycling is not new to us, as Unibet has also sponsored cycling teams in 2006 and 2007. We are therefore confident that we can support the ambitions of this new cycling team."

This ill-fated foray led to a legal battle when ASO refused to allow Unibet to participate in the race, citing anti-gambling laws. Rigoberto Urán, Frank Vandenbrouck, José Lujano, and Baden-Cook were racing for a team that collapsed in 2007 under the weight of the UCI-ASO battle.

The project has the potential to give a behind-the-scenes look at the work of a cycling team, its highs and lows.

There are parallels with other sports and YouTube teams. In soccer, the British team Hashtag United was created in 2016 as a group of friends playing exhibition matches. The team has snowballed, competing in the FA Cup and gaining more than 600,000 subscribers on the video platform.

This summer, Teitema and his collaborators were delivering pizzas to the Tour de France peloton on the Champs-Elysées. In the not-too-distant future, their team could be the punching bag in the sport's most prestigious race.