Here at Nifty, we love sport and personally, I can never have too much, unfortunately sport isn’t on 24/7. So, to fill the void of the mid-week break, I seek out some of my favourite sports channels on YouTube. They keep me updated with the latest news, updates, gossip and overall, keep me entertained.
Let’s take a closer look at the Best 5 Sport YouTube Channels.
Sky Sports
This one is probably a given. Although you could argue they are more than just a YouTube channel, Sky Sports offer exclusive YouTube content. From darts, football, boxing and rowing, the Sky Sports YouTube channel offers a variety of sporting content. Aside from the amazing content, Sky Sports is a well-established channel, and my ‘go-to’ for Premier League highlights.
Sky Sports post a variety of content, including;
- Exclusive interviews with current and former athletes, including challenges.
- Match/game highlights from a variety of sports and leagues
- Compilation and highlight videos.
Life can be busy, so we don’t always get the chance to watch live coverage, therefore this content is fundamental part of the fan experience, it allows supporters to be constantly engaged with their sport. With daily uploads, the Sky Sports YouTube channel allows fans to access updates and news and keeps them informed.
GQ Sports
GQ Sports offers a different form of sporting content to more traditional pages. They are known for their magazine and influence on mainstream culture such as fashion, lifestyle, celebrity news and anything entertainment related. Their approach to sport content follows the same structure as their other channels. They predominantly focus on athletes’ personal life and are famous for their ‘items you can’t live without’ series. This series is an informal interview, where athletes and celebrities go through and show their personal items. What’s great about this series is how unique the interviews are and how the fan can get to know their favourite athlete/celebrity on a more ’personal’ level. In one way, these interviews almost humanise these great athletes so many look up to.
GQ Sport is perfect for sport fans who want behind-the-scenes content and more personal information on their favourite players. Although interviews are with athletes, they aren’t all sport related, however, this format of content gives viewers and insight into the daily lives of athletes away from their sport.
Arsenal Fan TV
If you aren’t an Arsenal fan you may be wondering how this is relevant in the list in our top five. However, Arsenal Fan TV are a fitting example of what’s possible on YouTube. The last two channels on our list produces great content, but they are also well-established organisations. Arsenal Fan TV changed the game for fan-run social media pages/channels. They gained a huge success by giving viewers that ‘hard to replicate’ football fan community.
What Arsenal Fan TV does that differs to others is getting content from the individuals who make the sport what it is. After Arsenal games, the once ordinary (now well-known) presenters will interview the Arsenal fans themselves, getting insights into the game, with some returning faces becoming favourites on the channel. Arsenal Fan TV offers raw content from everyday fans who aren’t censored or afraid to speak the truth of their beloved team. This is arguebly what attracts Arsenal and non-Arsenal fans to the channel. In a Vice interview with founder Robbie Lyle on why he founded AFTV, Lyle said: “We’ve all had enough of the so-called pundits, most of whom aren’t even at the games. So, I started my own channel to hear from the real fans, with real opinions. That was my aim with the site’.
As well as post-game interviews, Arsenal Fan TV do live game reactions, football debates and any form of football analysis. This content has resonated with fans, as AFTV has an impressive 1.45 million subscribers and over 1.22 billion views.
ESPN
ESPN Is one of the biggest sports broadcasters in the world and its YouTube channel follows close by. The up-to-the-minute channel offers sports coverage from NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, and football (the real one). Any scores, highlights and interviews can be found on the ESPN YouTube channel. The reason ESPN is on this list isn’t just for its high-quality content, but how it acts as a gateway for others to access sport from other countries. TV broadcasting unfortunately limits us to what we can and can’t watch. However, with channels such as ESPN we can access content from leagues such as the NBA, NFL and NHL.
Red Bull
Red Bull has a YouTube channel full of content. You would think Red Bull’s YouTube would be full of F1 news and content, but at a quick glance you can see this isn’t the case. The content comes in all formats with a variety of sports. From rock climbing, rally driving, snowboarding, motocross and flying. The Red Bull YouTube channel really is for that adrenaline fuelled sports fan, as some of the videos on the channel can only be described as ‘insane’. These quick paced, action-packed videos will have you watching for hours on end. What we really like about the Red Bull YouTube channel is the unpredictability of the content and the coverage of more niche sports.
All the channels on this list have one simple similarity, they all offer exactly what fans want. They are meeting fans needs through different forms of entertainment, all linked back to sport. Fans want personal interviews, quick highlights, niche sports and sports they won’t normally get the chance to watch.
A crucial factor of this is all channels understanding their audiences needs and with this segmenting them and creating targeted content. Find out how segmenting your audience could possibly see an increase in fan engagement and increased revenue.
