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Football in the days of YouTube and Twitch

How streamers and youtubers are revolutionizing the creation and use of football content on social networks

Football in the days of YouTube and Twitch How streamers and youtubers are revolutionizing the creation and use of football content on social networks

Today streamers and youtubers are changing football narrative, projecting it into a new dimension, different from mainstream TV programs. It’s a not completely new phenomenon because, during last years, YouTube became the stage for a lot of characters that reinvented the video-commentary on the games on a platform that always had a lot of problems with football contents because copyright limitations and poor quality audio and video. 

The novelty lies in how and which this videos are changing the perception about youtuber’s role into modern football. Today a streamer or a youtuber is a real content creator able to open new debates and discussions and to retain his followers selling them his opinion and his passion. The same that belongs to Antonio, Andrea e Mirko Fusco, three neapolitan guys known as Fius Gamer. Their YouTube Channel counts almost one million subscribers and the most popular videos are those with live reactions during Napoli games:

"Everything started spontaneously. Our reactions would be the same even with the cameras off: we just sharing them and every time the fans recognize themselves in our moods. Football is sacred in Italy, and in recent years the fans' point of view has become more dominant and interesting, thanks also to the social media. Trends like football will never go out of fashion".

Not a trash show, but a realistic representation of being a football fan. An individual and collective rite that today is projected in a new era in which, on social network, youtubers videos are the most searched and clicked contents rather than goals.So youtubers are influent, listened and required stakeholders. Diego Ligorio, a diehard Inter Milan fan, for example is one of the most famous and appreciated italian youtuber - started in 2015 with a Facebook page, today has a channel with almost 23.000 subscribes and more than 7 million views - and is often hosted in various football talk shows in northern Italy:

"The most rewarding thing is that I was always called by other people never the other way. There aren’t secrets or strategies to get on a TV show: I try to be myself, saying my opinion smiling,entering into a world that isn’t mine in which, at the beginning, the journalists looking strange at you because you are a youtuber".   

Today, instead, a lot of sports journalist have opened a their own YouTube channel - like Stefano Borghi, apprecciated commentator for DAZN -, reinventing themselves in this new role, offering contents and insights about tactics. 

From this point of view one of the most interesting channel it’s Alesia by Ivan Brocchieri. His videos about Liverpool’s transictions or Marcelo Bielsa’s lectiones magistrales are a must watch for anyone who tries to understand something more about things happening on the field:

"I decided to open my channel when I started to wonder the difference between ‘play well’ and ‘play badly’. Other foreign channels like that of Nouman were a great inspiration, so I decided to combine my two great passions: videomaking and football tactics".

Actually the idea of football as a pop and cultural phenomenon is substantiated on the nedd to create a new generations of fans and commentators:

"In my opinion this in-depth analisys will become more relevant. If today a lot of sports journalists are moving on this new platforms means that this contents and videos will be the new form of sport communication in the next future, especially if will continue to surface figures able to speak about football because they work into football". 

Like Jacopo Gornati, Syon’s match analyst and founder of the channel Tacktickers on Twitch. The interview with Massimo Oddo was one of the most viewed and clicked content during last month: 

"We want to be an alternative to modern football communication tabloid-oriented. In our team we have two match analysts, three coaches, a web project manager and a brand developer. Each one of us has a great experience that shares on social networks that soon will take over traditional platforms because promote immediate interaction between content creators and followers: platforms are changing, contents and languages are changing too". 

Trying to combine tradition and innovation, passion and expertise:

"During these years I’ve learned a lot about methodologies and philosophies from different coaches: this allowed me to open my mind to many sides of this sport and now I’m trying to communicate this in my turn. But we too are fans, we get angry when our team loses and celebrate when wins. Our task is explain why a team lose or win. Football fan doesn’t need a complete konwledge about tactics: football is beautiful because it’s also recreation, fun and emotions. After, for the most curious, we are here".  

Because not only football is changing, but also all those talk about.