Irish Football Fan TV is the best Irish example of the phenomenon that has grown up around fans creating content and sharing via YouTube and social media channels.
Established in 2017 by Paul Nealon, a freelance TV Production assistant, the channel has over 14,000 subscribers on YouTube and has just signed it’s first major brand partnership with AIG who will back the channels content coming from Australia around the Women’s National Team at the FIFA World Cup.
The essence of Fan TV is that it captures the views and the thoughts of the fans, and operates outside the multi-billion world of official media broadcast rights.
All the major English Premier League clubs have a channel dedicated to their supporters, though again operating completely independent of the club itself.
AFTV changed its name from Arsenal TV after operating for six years, with the club insisting on copyright to use of the name in a football context. Founder Robbie Lyle has become a familiar face on social media and the channel now has over 1.5 million subscribers.
Irish Football Fan TV has created a platform for fans of the national teams and the clubs in the SSE Airtricity Premier League.
While FAI TV will also be producing content from within the cam throughout the journey to Australia, we imagine the independent view will have plenty of content to draw from with the fans being an important and integral part of the story that will be created over the coming weeks.
AIG getting involved is an example of how brands who are not part of the official sponsorship family around the team and the tournament will look to gain some degree of benefit by association.
There are other opportunities to get involved with Irish Football Fan TV and we also generated a fair degree of interest when highlighting the opportunity to partner with Bohemians and a big screen showing of the Ireland games at Dalymount Park through the tournament.
Read more about that opportunity here.
