Footballco, a football media company owned by TPG, has made it clear that it does not intend to allocate significant funds for rights acquisition. Instead, the UK-based firm will only acquire highlights if they can enhance storytelling content and drive higher engagement and advertising returns.
Last week, Footballco announced the extension of its Major League Soccer highlights content agreement until the 2025 season. This deal complements a three-season contract for worldwide digital highlights clips from the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), as well as a one-season agreement for English Football League (EFL) clips.
Furthermore, the recent appointment by the Saudi Pro League (SPL) to launch an English-language YouTube show also granted clip rights to Footballco.
Focus on US properties
Despite these deals, Footballco’s annual rights expenditure across all properties is thought to be around £1m ($1.3m). The focus of this investment is primarily on US properties and is seen as necessary to amplify editorial content and programming.
The costs associated with securing rights to premium European football properties have been deemed prohibitive by this media group that owns titles such as Goal, Spox, Voetbalzone, Koora and CalcioMercato. Juan Delgado explained why they shy away from investing heavily in live streaming.
Juan Delgado, Chief executive at Footballco, said:
“We came out of DAZN which was built out of live streaming. We know the capital intense nature of that business and therefore that’s partially why you shy away from it.
“The second part is that the business that we’ve built, which will hopefully get to three times where we were in 2020 by 2026, leverages no footage. Obviously if we were trying to do something with the business overall, post that, we would want to use that argument to say imagine what you could do if you had footage being injected into this whole ecosystem. Not live. Just footage in general.”
“When you work with a league, club or broadcaster, you get more of that access,” he said. “And you can build IP out of it. We’re not allergic to highlights [rights deals] but clips in themselves are not going to generate any value for you. It’s the access or insertion of footage in a storyline that may make your content better but it’s always down to the format and the creator.”
Current agreements and future plans
The MLS agreement allows Footballco access to highlights of hundreds of matches per season. The NWSL deal for weekly highlights on Goal and Indivisa, Footballco’s women's football platform, is halfway through its three-season term.
The EFL deal was negotiated with Relevent Sports Group, a US-based agency that distributes rights in the Americas. SPL clips are showcased on the ‘Yalla SPL’ show published monthly on Goal's global YouTube channel. Footballco also distributes goal clips across its social platforms as part of a league that has adopted an 'exposure first' approach to digital distribution in pursuit of global recognition.
