‘Football has lost its soul’: How Copa90 is repositioning itself around the creator economy

By Seb Joseph

Soccer seems about as far away from fans as it has ever been. If anything, it seems closer now to the richest clubs and most influential leagues given everything that has transpired over the last year-plus with the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns. And yet those behind soccer media business Copa90, which focuses on the culture around the sport rather than the matches, believe the time has never been better to double down on the fan culture that has fueled its large following and attracted major investors.

Sure, it sounds romantic given the absurdity of soccer’s opulence these days; when breakaway leagues, warring governing bodies and more fixtures belie an unquenchable thirst for money at the upper echelons of the sport. And yet, Copa90’s overseers believe there’s another shift happening in tandem with the corporatization of the sport that has the potential to be just as transformative: soccer — especially the slick, carefully pruned form of its top competitions — is meant to be apolitical but the emergence of players who are more influential than politicians, the prevalence of financial greed and the conspicuous absence of people of color in coaching roles show a sport more politicized than ever

“Football has lost its soul,” said Tom Thirlwall, Copa90’s CEO. The rapid rise and fall of the European Super League is proof, he continued. It’s also proof that embers of that soul can flicker back into life. Otherwise, European soccer’s proposed Super League might still be about, said Thirlwall. It took a mere 56 hours from the news of the tournament first breaking to its collapse under the weight of pressure from fans. Indeed, it showed the voice of fans still has sway over the sport, even now when those who run it are more likely to refer to them as consumers. Unsurprisingly, Thirlwall believes Copa90, the football-focused media business he set up in 2012, is the perfect, trusted medium for this.

And he may have a point. Copa90 has always acted as the voice of the modern soccer fan. Execs there create and distribute content that straddles the connection between fans, clubs and leagues. A £70 million ($9.6 million) valuation in 2018 shows how lucrative a niche it has been for Thirlwall and his team. They haven’t, however, mined that platform in a coordinated, structured way — the business was in high-growth mode, after all.

As Thirlwall explained: “Any changes to the business have been done at 300 miles an hour at 30,000 feet.” But the pandemic grounded the business and gave the team time to take stock of what has been achieved since it launched almost a decade ago, and map out what it wants to achieve over the next 10 years. Now, sustainability and profitability are top of mind, he said. “During that period of reflection, we realized that we had to maximize our differences in the market,” said Thirlwall. New areas like crypto were …read more

Source:: Digiday