The growing popularity and reach of the Premier League globally is leaving rival European football competitions struggling to compete.
Not only to find an audience, but to find outlets to even show the matches.
So German football had to think differently – going to where Gen Z is engaging with football through content creators.
And that’s why tonight, Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich will begin their defence of the Bundesliga title live to 1.4 million subscribers on the That’s Football channel on YouTube.
It’s run by Mark Goldbridge, known for passionate but often provocative, punchy commentary about players on streams going viral.
His brand was built by being filmed reacting to watching Manchester United matches.
“People need to appreciate that we have a certain content style, and that’s very, very popular,” Goldbridge told Sky News.
“That is an area that needs to be catered [to] and that’s why, without the rights, we’ve had such big, big audiences.”
Goldbridge revealed he isn’t paying to show his 20 Friday night matches this season – reinforcing how the Bundesliga struggled to find a buyer in Britain.
Sky Sports previously had a four-year rights deal to exclusively show those German matches here, but will now only show the prestige Saturday evening slot live.
European leagues are finding it increasingly difficult in this market to sell their rights because domestic football is so dominant and appealing.
The focus of football budgets is on domestic games for Sky as well as Discovery-owned TNT Sports, which also focuses its European football coverage on men’s continental competitions, including the Champions League.
More Premier League matches will be shown live than ever before – with at least 215 on Sky, the parent company of Sky News, and others on TNT.
Sky Sports also has live men’s rights to the English Football League and Scottish matches, as well as sharing the Women’s Super League with the BBC.
The Bundesliga is also making the games broadcast by Goldbridge’s channel available to the BBC to stream online. They will further be on The Overlap, a YouTube channel part-owned by Gary Neville.
‘A progressive step’
Bundesliga International CEO Peer Naubert said: “Our approach is as diverse as our supporters: by combining established broadcasters with digital platforms and content creators, we are taking a progressive step in how top-level football can be experienced.
“This multi-layered strategy allows us to connect with more audiences across the UK and Ireland, giving every supporter the chance to engage … in the way that suits them best.”
While the former England and Manchester United player is a star pundit on Sky, he could also be seen as a rival to the Comcast-owned broadcaster by attracting fans to newer outlets of his channel.
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Goldbridge doesn’t see himself as a rival yet to long-established broadcasters.
“We’re not looking to replace what you can find on Sky or the BBC or anything like that,” he said. “This is a community that will be live with us, watching the Bundesliga, learning about it.
“And if I get a pronunciation wrong, or I don’t know about a player, then I’ve got my community there to back me up. I don’t profess to know everything.”
‘This is the future’
But he can be relatable to audiences, with more than two million subscribing to his The United Stand channel, earning him millions of pounds over the last decade.
“We’ve been there growing in the background and I think certain media outlets have ignored that, maybe hoping it would go away,” he said.
“I certainly think synergy and collaboration need to happen more because there are things in the mainstream that I don’t like and there will be people out there that really don’t like the way we watch football, but a lot of people do.
“And it’s about offering that choice to people and there are different ways people listen to football on the radio, people watch it with a commentator, some people turn the audio off completely, some people watch things like this (watch-a-long).
“And I think that is the future, to offer more choice.”
