On the morning of April 12, FIFA, the governing body of world football, announcement the launch of its own streaming platform, FIFA+. Among the content, fans will be able to follow women’s and men’s matches live, for example, or even watch documentary series. Funded by advertising, the streaming service should initially be free. The authority clearly displays its great ambitions and speaks of a ” world-class digital platform “.
FIFA+, the Netflix of football
Like streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, FIFA+ will provide many types of content. Documentaries, series or feature films on stories and legends of football will be offered. Many ” world-class exclusive titles have already been announced, including Ronaldinho: The happiest man in the world.
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The broadcast of live matches also represents an important part of the FIFA+ offer. By the end of the year, the platform plans to broadcast nearly 40,000 matches live from the six confederations. In concrete terms, this will be 29,000 men’s matches and more than 11,000 women’s matches. FIFA+ also offers World Cup archives, equivalent to nearly 2,000 hours of viewing. The archives as a whole will be launched with more than 2,500 videos dating back to the 1950s “. ” Game Center seems to be one of the flagship features of FIFA+. Fans will be able to discover rich football data across 400 men’s competitions and 65 women’s competitions “. Finally, short films and talk shows complete the offer.
Documentaries, matches, archives, data, talk shows and short films, but also games. FIFA+ plans to launch interactive, fantastic games, or even quizzes. A true Netflix of football in short.
FIFA+ offers a lot of content, including archives, original documentaries, and live matches, accessible from its application or its website. Picture: FIFA+.
“The next step to make football inclusive”
The streaming service, accessible via a website and applications on iOS and Android, currently offers only five languages, namely English, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese. Six more languages are expected to be added during the year, including Mandarin, Arabic and Hindi. Eventually, the platform should be available in 11 languages, and cover football news and history from more than 40 countries.
” FIFA+ represents the next step in our vision to make football truly global and inclusive said FIFA President Gianni Infantino. ” This will accelerate the democratization of football “, he added.
If FIFA has big ambitions, it’s partly because the market allows it. For the Premier League alone, there would be 200 million people paying to access matches. According to HollywoodReporter, the organization is precisely targeting 200 million users by the end of 2022. The free service should also strengthen its attractiveness. A free service which is however not guaranteed in the long term, subscriptions being able to see the light of day.
It should also be noted that watching football matches is expensive for fans. All competitions are split between multiple broadcasters. To get access to most important matches, you have to take several subscriptions and spend a lot of money. Although European competitions and live World Cup matches seem absent from its catalog, there is no doubt that FIFA+ will appeal to a large audience of fans, at least as long as its offer remains free. It could also be a first step in ending multiple broadcasters. This launch also reflects the current digitalization of sports, a phenomenon to which football is no exception.