To make this year's pre-season friendly between FC Nürnberg and Arsenal accessible to an even broader target group & also raise awareness of the match, the game was also broadcast on the YouTube channel of Wakez, one of the high-reach members of the creator collective SQVAD. This resulted in a well attended livestream, an emotional vlog on YouTube and numerous Instagram Stories & Posts.
Alastair Pusinelli
Published on September 13th, 2023
In this Success Story:
Background
Every year, football clubs prepare for the season with a high-class friendly matches against top teams from overseas. This was also the case for FC Nürnberg, who faced off against iconic English side Arsenal for the second year in a row.
But although these matches often guarantee plenty of goals and rare contests, the clubs and the broadcasting media are finding it increasingly difficult to get the young target group excited about these sporting events. This is where the SPORTFIVE creator collective SQVAD comes in, with the aim of disrupting the situation and making the emotions of such events tangible for an even larger community.
Solution
In order to make the match accessible to an even wider target group, the match was not only broadcast linearly via ServusTV and digitally via ServusTV ON, and on the club TV of FC Nürnberg, but also additionally on the YouTube channel of Wakez, one of the high-reach SQVAD creators (980,000 subscribers).
Wakez had his fellow SQVAD members Proownez and NHeisen met fans before the game, performed pack openings on stream and even provided their own commentary to the match - with Kai Havertz's Arsenal debut a big talking point for the fans.
Execution
The goal was clear: The fans should be offered an entertaining and exciting broadcast, which has never been seen before in this form. For this purpose, the SQVAD creators, together with a professional production team, set up their streaming setup in a business lounge of the Max Morlock Stadium from where they provided up-close commentary on the action on and off the pitch. This ensured that viewers were able to experience the excitement and emotion of this match in the best possible way - the reactions in the chat of the livestream confirmed this.
During the broadcast, viewers could therefore not only look forward to a great football match, but also to interesting field interviews with stars such as Kai Havertz, exciting gaming and football challenges during the half-time break of the match or even funny interactions with the fans on site (such as joint pack openings live in the stream).
Coordination with media rights holder
A brief consultation with the rights holder (ServusTV) laid the foundation for the co-stream. As a media outlet that reaches an older target group via TV and its own stream platform Servus On, it quickly became clear to ServusTV that this was a special opportunity to boost the reach of the own transmission to a younger community.
Build up a stream set-up
It doesn't take much to keep the streaming-savvy community happy. A proper set-up in the stadium was created quickly, and this is hardly any additional effort for the organizing club either (no more than a small room is required) with the potential for a decent additional income at the same time.
Activate and entertain on ground
A core of the successful campaign was the opportunity to "let the streamers do their thing" on site and on the field. Interviews with players from both clubs in their own style, half-time entertainment and long autograph sessions with young fans after the game rounded off the unique experience for many visitors.
Integrate community features in stream
What is exciting for rights holders and brands alike are the native elements in streams, which our creators also picked up on in this broadcast. An active chat, branding areas, possible presentation of formats and integrations (for example the popular SBB challenge as a learned format before kick-off). All of this activates and involves the viewers, resulting in an attractive media product.
Offer commercial partners to be part
Of course, such a further distribution channel also offers exciting opportunities for brands to get involved. The advertising in the run-up to the game, the creative activations all around and the authentic storytelling by the creators with a wide range are attractive advertising opportunities for your brand messaging.
Additional Content = Increased Attention
This premiere was very well received by the community, as could be seen from the numerous positive comments in the livestream and on social media. The reach generated with the livestream, the VLOG and the accompanying Instagram Stories & Posts also speak for themselves:
3,400
average viewers
+ 56,000
hours watched
+ 3.2 m
impressions generated
"What we saw at Nuremberg against Arsenal is part of the future of live football: gaming creators who broadcast a 90-minute football match live on their social channels, commentate in their own way without any guidelines and simply have fun interactively with their target group."
Kai Rippe, Senior Vice President Rightsholder Business at SPORTFIVE
What's in it for you?
In a nutshell: SQVAD reaches the young target group! SQVAD's opportunity to broadcast and comment on the friendly match between FC Nürnberg and Arsenal London directly from the stadium on its own channels gave the match significantly more attention among the young target group than the previous year's clash.
The authentic live stream, the resulting emotional VLOG and the numerous social media postings and stories directly from the sidelines gave the young target group an unprecedented experience that made them want to see it again.
