Mark Goldbridge is probably not a name known to many who aren’t terminally online or born before the turn of the millennium. In short, he’s a YouTube star with millions of subscribers. He’s also a Manchester United fan, and he will broadcast live streams of himself watching United games, with several hundred thousand viewers watching him react to events in the match.
If the prospect of watching someone watch a game rather than watch it yourself seems strange to you, you’re not alone. Yet, Goldbridge is no outlier. He’s simply emblematic of a wider shift in how many of us consume football. The shift has moved from traditional broadcasting and match attendance to social media.
Football focus has shifted to social media
During the 2022 World Cup, Elon Musk, who does like to boast about engagement on Twitter/X, talked about the surge in traffic on the site during games. Most of us would have been watching England on ITV and the BBC, yet many of us would have a phone in our hands, scrolling for reactions to what we are seeing on the television.
The rise of “Football Twitter” represents a challenge to traditional print media. On any given Saturday, the platform is awash with football fans discussing team selection or strategies for their bet builder selections on the upcoming Premier League games. If you want to be first to see Liverpool or Manchester United’s line-up for a game, you’ll get it on X before anywhere else. Go to the BBC’s live football feed on a busy day in the EFL, and you’ll see posts from X, Facebook and Instagram integrated into the Beeb’s coverage.
There is a sense that there has been a shift from the broadcasters, too. Back in the not-too-distant past, Sky Sports was covetous of its broadcasting rights, blocking anything that appeared on social media. Now, it’s taken a if you can beat them, join them attitude. Within minutes, any goal broadcast on television will be available on social media, usually provided from the likes of Sky or TNT (formerly BT Sports) themselves.
Yet, here’s the rub: often, the content available on social media is more varied than what you see on television. For instance, clips on social media could be discussing a talking point missed by the commentating team on television. Moreover, as Elon Musk likes to point out, it’s unfiltered, sometimes tackling talking points that are deliberately ignored on family-friendly television. It’s also a gateway to lower league coverage missed by major broadcasters.
Perhaps the pertinent question is whether the experience now is better than it once was. It probably depends on who you ask. The wealth of information on social media is incredible, but some might believe it is simply too much. The experience of watching a game transforms from a personal one to a social one, and that is not objectively superior for everyone.
While it’s not necessarily mandatory, the strangest phenomenon is arguably that of “watch-alongs”, as seen with Goldbridge. It’s a bizarre situation, but it’s not limited to football. YouTube is littered with popular videos showing streamers reacting to movies, television, and music. And, if you know platforms like Twitch, people will tune in in their millions to watch gamers play video games. It’s arguably a generational thing, something that Gen-Z understands as normal but leaves the rest of us with raised eyebrows.
The shift toward social media is likely to become starker in years to come. Recently, X announced the X TV app, promising to deliver broadcasting experiences that go beyond traditional Twitter-scrolling. It, as well as similar apps, will further blur the lines between sports broadcasting and social media. More content, more insight, more angles for every goal, but will something be lost by having our attention on several things instead of a single game?
