For years, reaching a football audience was relatively straightforward.
Supporters watched television, read newspapers, listened to radio and attended matches.
Today, the same supporter might watch a match on television, see a goal on social media, listen to a podcast in the car, watch a creator discussing it on YouTube and receive club information through Instagram or WhatsApp.
The audience has not disappeared.
It has fragmented.
That changing relationship between sport, media and audiences was one of the subjects being discussed at SPORTCITIES in Valladolid on 22 October, where Sergio Perela (DAZN), Miguel Ángel Vasco (Diario AS) and Nacho Labarga (Marca) took part in a session examining new formats and the changing consumer of sports information.
It is a conversation every football club should be having.
Because communicating well is no longer simply about having a website and posting regularly on social media.
It is about understanding where different parts of your audience spend their time, what they expect to find there and how they prefer to consume information.
A development announced this week in Spanish basketball provides an interesting example.
Liga U, the development competition created by the ACB and Spanish Basketball Federation, will make more than 150 matches available free through DAZN during the 2026-27 season.
But DAZN is only one part of the distribution.
All matches are also available through the competition’s YouTube channel, with one game per round shown on Teledeporte. Matches are additionally distributed through Aragón TV and Esport3/3Cat, as well as the websites of AS, Marca, Mundo Deportivo and Sport.
The lesson is not that every club needs to be everywhere.
It is that relying on one platform increasingly means relying on only one part of your potential audience.
For a football club, different channels can perform different jobs.
A website can provide reliable information.
Instagram can show the personality and visual identity of the club.
YouTube can tell longer stories.
Short-form video can introduce the club to people who have never actively searched for it.
Email can maintain a direct relationship with supporters.
And matchday itself can turn all of that digital interest into a real-world experience.
The important thing is not simply creating more content.
It is understanding why each piece of content exists and who it is trying to reach.
That matters particularly for smaller clubs.
They may not have the resources of major professional organisations, but they often have something extremely valuable: stories, personalities and communities that bigger organisations would struggle to manufacture.
The opportunity is to package those assets properly and distribute them where people are actually paying attention.
The same applies to football creators and businesses.
A YouTube channel does not necessarily grow because more videos are uploaded. A club does not automatically build a stronger audience because it posts more often.
Growth comes from understanding the people you are trying to reach, creating something relevant to them and making it easy for them to find it.
Your audience is still out there.
It just isn’t all standing in the same place any more.
