There is no doubt that the globalisation of sport has had an impact on the engagement that sports teams have with their fans. The English Premier League is one of the most popular and well known sporting competition around the world. The global spread of the Premier League can be connected to media, previously of television, however now and more recently social media has a great impact in the global popularity of the Premier League (Menary, 2016). New media outlets such as YouTube now possess the ability to broadcast popular sporting events worldwide such as the Champions League final in 2018 which was live streamed worldwide to millions (Gratton et al., 2016). However it cannot be underestimated the role that television broadcasting has played with the globalisation of the Premier League with 212 countries around the world broadcasting Premier League matches such as NBC in the USA (Gratton et al., 2016).

Traditional media such as television was an important factor to the globalisation of football and clubs being able have increased revenue due to tv deals and gate receipts, however, new media forms such as social media must be credited for the ability for fans all over the world to be able to engage with the football clubs they love and support. Football clubs such as Liverpool create various twitter accounts for different countries, where the tweets and content posted is in the language of that region, such as @LFCBrasil, @LFCIndonesia, @LFCMumbai and @ThaiLFC. There are many other official Liverpool accounts all over the world. Liverpool FC understand that engaging with their fans can be a critical contributer to both the development of the club and sport as well as bring commercial success (Stander et al., 2016). Sports fans and Liverpool fans all over the world are very loyal and passionate, once the fan has bonded with the team, the connection they have is very powerful and long-lasting, therefore fan engagement is critical in order to secure this strong bond (Conrad, 2016).

Through the use of creating various Liverpool twitter accounts, sports fans from that area are able to engage with Liverpool Fc and other fans from their country, somewhat creating a community through engagement. This is vital as even though some fans are incredibly far away from Anfield, they are still able to feel part of the fan base and have a sense of belonging at Liverpool Fc. Liverpool use all of their various social media accounts to increase interactions and engagements with their fans about the team as well as current and upcoming fixtures (Parganas & Anagnostopoulos, 2015). The advantages of social media was recognised by Liverpool in that there was a benefit in communicating and nurturing relationships with its worldwide fan base. A customer-focused strategy through the use of social media had been adopted, which accounts for differences in terms of both culture and language regarding the fan base (Parganas & Anagnostopoulos, 2015: 71). It is vital that Liverpool continue to use social media to engage with their fans worldwide as it is highly beneficial and rewarding to fans as new media allow fans to extend their fanship in different and meaningful ways. Newer media complement and supplement traditional media as fans are able to watch matches live while engaging in chat and communications with other fans from all over the world, discussing events happening in the game (Gantz & Lewis, 2014).

Due to fan engagement and globalisation of Premier League clubs such as Liverpool, there is a huge demand for Clubs to travel the world playing fixtures. To make many fans dream of seeing their club play live, many top football teams compete in pre-season competitions all over the world. Traditional media forms such as television has driven and increased the global popularity of both football itself and football clubs such as Liverpool (Gratton et al., 2016). Prior to traditional media forms such as television and radio, football was a declining industry, thankfully due to fan engagement through television and radio, the Premier League is now broadcast in 212 countries live around the world (Gratton et al., 2016).

Due to the amount of Premier League fans worldwide thanks to television as well as social media, TV rights have made the Premier League the richest league in the world. A massive factor in the escalation of the value is Pre-season tours (Menary, 2016). Pre-season tours allow supporters clubs and communities from all over the world to watch and support their favourite team in their own country, as well as being able to engage with the club such as Liverpool fans signing You’ll Never Walk Alone, or the club holding an open training session where fans are able to meet their idols, get autographs and pictures with them. Due to the use of social media as a way for clubs to engage with their fans all over the world, this can lead to the fans increased intention to engage in a beneficial way to the club, such as attending future games and buying merchandise (Hedlund, 2014).

Last week, Liverpool’s Donovan Hunt (F2Tekkz) was crowned the first ever ePremier League champion, having defeated Manchester United’s Kyle Leese 6-2 after two legs. Hunt, who is the number 1 FIFA player in the world described this victory as ‘favourite yet’ as he was able to represent his boyhood club Liverpool.

Hunt said that he was nervous before coming into this tournament, stating he had began the tournament playing ‘awful’, however he remained calm and eased into the tournament throughout the course. The first leg of the tie was played on playstation, with F2Tekkz dominating in a 4-1 lead going into the second leg. The current FUT Champions Cup Champion secured a dominant 2-1 perfromance in the second leg to secure the ePremier League on a 6-2 scoreline. The ePremier League campaign began on 5th January, with players on both Xbox and Playstation competing for the title. The players were put through an online qualification process and live club playoffs, ending with 20 players representing each of the Premier League clubs in order to reach the ePremier League grand finals, which started on Thursday 28th March (Sky Sports).

How does the process work?

The 20 Premier League clubs began a qualifying process through tournament play at the beginning of the year. Any UK resident aged 16 or over could compete, with the best players earning a spot in the offline qualifier for that club, which were all held at Premier League stadiums. The winners of these offline qualifiers became that club’s representatives at the ePremier League finals (BBC Sport, 2019). On Thursday and Friday, the 40 players that qualified for the ePremier League through their club’s qualification process played at the Gfinity Arena in London. Xbox and Playstation have 20 players each, which are divided into four groups with five players, the top two from each group qualify for the quarter finals, where the tournament becomes a knock-out tournament (BBC Sport, 2019). Asked if the Premier League will return to esports, its head of sales and marketing Will Brass said: “The honest answer is I don’t know.What we’re really focused on doing is creating the best competition we can for this iteration of the Premier League, and most importantly the best competition for the gamers and the fans.” (BBC Sport, 2019).

eSports commonly refer to competitive video gaming that is often coordinated by different leagues, ladders and tournaments, and where players customarily belong to teams or other “sporting” organizations which are sponsored by various business organizations. During recent years, eSports have become one of the most rapidly growing forms of new media driven by the growing provenance of online games and online broadcasting technologies. (Hamari & Sjöblom, 2017). eSports can be used by corporations such as Electronic Arts (EA) or Premier League football clubs as a means to engage with fans a customers. The event was streamed live on the Sky Sports YouTube channel with 93,000 views on day 1, and over 178,000 for the grand final. Fans watching were able to communicate to each other through the chatroom, discussing tactics, goals and everything inbetween in the FIFA community, Sport consumers join and participate in networks of like-minded fans and engage in collaborative consumption activities” (Hedlund, 2014: 51). The ePremier League was also broadcast live on SkySports Main Event channel.

eSports is a forever expanding and developing industry, with the overall video game revenue worth $101.62bn. Within professional gaming, there are two key ways when maximising revenue. The first way would be to join a partner program, build a huge online viewership, and get a cut in the ad revenue your gameplay rakes in. YouTube, Twitch, MajorLeagueGaming and plenty of other services host popular gamers. Competing in tournaments and leagues is the second viable option to earn money, this is the choice that F2Tekkz has opted for, who has earned a staggering $230,000 from 10 tournaments.

EA Sports have adapted one of the most effective strategies for maintaining fan engagement over the course of FIFA 19 professional tournaments. They recognise that their fanbase are loyal and passionate (Conrad, 2016). EA Sports were able to recognise the motivations and demands of consumers, which was that they wanted to be rewarded for the dedication to watch the streams and support the organisation. EA Sports recognised that rewards were needed in order to reach and maintain a high level of fan engagement and collaborated with Twitch.tv to enable ‘Twitch Drops’ (Stavros et al., 2014). Twitch Drops was a system implemented where fans were able to link their EA Sports account with their Twitch account, this enabled EA Sports to give fans rewards to their FIFA Ultimate Team account such as iconic and legendary players which would usually take hundreds of hours of playing, or thousands of pounds spent to acquire them. As ” fan engagement increases, the impact on revenues is twofold: directly, by offering an additional outlet to sponsors and commercial partners to promote their products to millions of fans instantly; and indirectly, through the facilitation of two-way communication and the building of long-term relationships with fans, which can be translated into revenues in the long term through increased purchasing and downloads of the game as well as an increase in micro-transactions within the game itself.’ (Parganas & Anagnostopoulos, 2015: 71).

 YouTube is a new form of media being used to post content from professional sports clubs to their fans, giving them a greater insight to player’s relationships, new signings and inside tunnel action. Liverpool Football Club is at the forefront of this movement, with over 1.9million subscribers. This level of fan engagement has brought a togetherness between Jurgen Klopp’s team and the fans as Liverpool FC “need to use social media to encourage fan interactions and increase engagement with the sport and the team in general” (Parganas & Anagnostopoulos, 2015: 65). 


(Liverpool Youtube Channel)

Liverpool’s success last season on the pitch through reaching the Champions League final and securing top 4 in the Premier League was represented in terms of activity off the pitch, with their YouTube channel amassing with audience attendance increasing around the world, with the club achieving its greatest online audience to date. “The sight of English Premier League football shirts in less-developed countries is increasingly prevalent, as all forms of media take the EPL to countries both rich and poor. The spread in global popularity of the competition has been predominantly achieved through the medium of television and, more recently, social media” (Menary, 2016: 1).

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(Liverpool fans who travelled to Kiev in May 2019)
The start of 2018 for Liverpool was very impressive in terms of social media presence, as they were the most popular Premier League team on YouTube, with their exclusive content uploaded on the channel which attracted more than 52.9 million. Liverpool’s greatest hit to this date has been a video involving Mohammed Salah, the 2017/18 top goal scorer. The video consists of school children talking about their idol and Salah then surprises them afterwards. This is the type of content that Liverpool are producing to engage with their fans, creating a strong bond between the players and fans. “Newer media allow fans to extend their fanship in different and meaningful ways.” (Gantz & Lewis, 2014, cited in Billings & Hardin, 2014: 26).

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Liverpool FC have ran 3 main series’ on their YouTube channel that fans have became truly engaged with;
1. Inside Anfield
2. Premier League Highlights
3. Bezzies
The club also posts other content such as Jurgen Klopp’s press conferences, documentaries, new signings going through medicals and their signing interview.

Inside Anfield is a series that began in late 2016 in which fans are shown tunnel cam footage as well as the goals in the match from the view of the tunnel. This series helped to increase fan engagement with the Liverpool fans. The footage is from Liverpool wins at Anfield in any competition, as well as away wins in the Champions League, the average video exceeds 1 million views. Sports fans often feel a strong emotional tie to the team that they support and watching on television (Taylor & Thomas, 2017) and so therefore Inside Anfield gives these fans the opportunity to take in more content and footage of both their team and what happens behind the scenes. Match reporting and the nature of it has shifted over time with the use of this new media such as Inside Anfield (Price et al., 2013). Inside Anfield increase fan engagement as it offers fans who cannot attend matches the chance to experience a matchday at Anfield as it is extremely difficult to acquire tickets for matches, and for that reason it is extremely popular amongst Liverpool fans worldwide.

The second series that Liverpool run on their YouTube account is match highlights of the 2018-19 season, both in the Premier League and the Champions League. These highlight videos are between 2-3 minutes long showing all the goals and chances within the game. The videos are usually uploaded 3 days after the match has happened, offering fans the chance to rewatch or catch up on the game if they had failed to see it live. These highlights that are uploaded can be seen as a new way to match reporting, this allows the Liverpool fans to watch just their team for 2-3 minutes without having to sit through other games waiting for their teams such as traditional forms of media such as television with Match of the Day (Price et al., 2013). This series increases fan engagement through the comment section, where fans are able to talk to one another about goals and decisions throughout the game. This new form of media allows the fans to participate in like-minded discussion and and engage together creating a community. The creation of these fan communities is a strategy that can be employed by sports clubs such as Liverpool which will increase fan engagement (Hedlund, 2014).

The third series ran by the Liverpool Fc YouTube account is Bezzies. This series does not show any content in relation to games and fixtures that have been played, no content from the pitch is shown. This series focus’ on the friendships built between players at Liverpool. Bezzies is a series where teammates answer questions about their closest teammates seeing how well they know each other. Being a fan is no longer just about watching and cheering for your team, through social media fans now want greater access to the players and want to know more about them (Da Silva & Las Casas, 2017). Through providing fans with greater access to the players, this brings the fans closer to the players and feel more connected to them and the club, therefore through the series Bezzies, fan engagement increases.

Reference List;

Parganas. P. and Anagnostopoulos, C. (2015) Social Media Strategy in Professional Football: The Case of Liverpool FC. Sport Management International Journal, 11, (2), pp. 61-75.

Menary, S. (2016): Game on: the commercialisation and corruption of the pre-season friendly, Soccer and Society.

Gantz, W. and Lewis, N. (2014) Fanship differences between traditional and mew media. In: Billings, A. and Hardin, M. (2014) Routledge Handbook of Sport and New Media. Routledge: Oxon. pp. 26-31.

Taylor, G. and Thomass, B. (2017) Sports rights and public service media/public broadcasting: Case studies on economic and political implications. The International Communication Gazette, 79, (2), pp. 111–119

Price, J., Farrington, N. and Hall, L. (2013) Changing the game? The impact of Twitter on relationships between football clubs, supporters and the sports media, Soccer and Society, 14:4, pp. 446-461.

Hedlund, D.P. (2014) Creating value through membership and participation in sport fan consumption communities. European Sport Management Quarterly, 14, (1), pp. 50-71.

Da Silva, E.C. and Las Casas, A.L. (2017) Sports fans as consumers: An approach to sports marketing. British Journal of Marketing Studies. 5, (4), pp. 36-48.

Gratton, C., Liu, D., Ramchandani, G. and Wilson, D. (2016) The Global Economics of Sport. In: Byers, T. (ed). Contemporary Issues in Sport Management – A Critical Introduction. London: Sage. pp. 68-84.

Stander, F.W., Van Zyl, L.E. and Motaung, K. (2016) Promoting fan engagement: An exploration of the fundamental motives for sport consumption amongst premier league football spectators. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 26, (4), pp. 309-315.

Conrad, M. (2016) The Business of Sports (3rd edn.) New York: Routledge.

Stavros, C., Meng, M.D., Westberg, K. and Farrelly, F. (2014) Understanding fan motivation for interacting on social media. Sport Management Review, 17, pp. 455–46.

BBC Sport. (2019). Esports: Liverpool win first ePremier League tournament. Accessed from https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47755842. Accessed on 2nd April 2019.

Sky Sports. (2019). F2Tekkz crowned ePremier League Champion. Accessed from https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11661/11678635/f2tekkz-crowned-epremier-league-champion. Accessed on 4th April 2019.

Hamari, J. and Sjöblom, M., 2017. What is eSports and why do people watch it?. Internet research, 27(2), pp.211-232.