England’s World Cup campaign may be proceeding according to a familiar narrative on the pitch — swinging between wild optimism and crushing disappointment amid huge media hype — but off it a quiet revolution is taking place.
Tim Lovejoy, the chirpy former Soccer AM presenter who divides opinion, helped change football coverage with his chummy sofa-based show. Now he is threatening to do the same again, reporting from inside the England camp for the Football Association’s own online broadcaster — the only one, it boasts, “with official 24-7 access to Fabio Capello’s team”. Lovejoy is fronting exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and videos from all England’s training sessions and press conferences.
Despite the saturation coverage elsewhere, the online broadcaster seems to be doing well, with more than one million views in the past week. It has garnered more than 500 000 views through the FA’s website since the beginning of May and 3,5-million views through its YouTube channel. “The idea is to take this fun and engaging content to where the users are,” says Stuart Turner, the FA’s head of broadcast and acting commercial director.
But the rise of FA TV also raises all sorts of questions. The sort of content produced by Lovejoy is lighthearted and less than probing. Its success suggests that web viewers are prepared to forgo independent coverage for inside access and gives the FA a potentially valuable revenue stream because it can sell the content to overseas broadcasters.
Capello and his right-hand man Franco Baldini have thrown their weight behind the initiative. Capello was at Real Madrid when the club launched its own TV channel and Baldini saw the same thing happen at Roma. But will the FA and other rights holders be able to balance the desire to build an inhouse operation with serving the needs of the rest of the media?
The FA has a love-hate relationship with the media. During a World Cup British newspapers and broadcasters hungry for every cough and spit from the England camp need it more than it needs them. But when it is trying to re-establish the popularity of the FA Cup next season, or promote its bid to host the 2018 World Cup, it will need their support.
“We absolutely must not become the bottleneck. We will never say that no one else gets anything any more and become the central distribution point. Newspapers and broadcast partners are as important to us as anyone else,” says Turner. —