📺 Mark Goldbridge Wins Big

The impact of the Mark Goldbridge Bundesliga broadcast rights deal should not be overlooked.

For those unaware, Mark Goldbridge is one of the biggest sports YouTubers in the United Kingdom. His biggest channel “That’s Football” has become the home for “watchalong” content for thousands of people every week.

He is an avid Manchester United fan and frequently goes viral for his reactions and takes to Man United’s on-pitch woes.

Last week it was announced that he was a key part of rights distribution strategy for the upcoming Bundesliga season.

He’ll stream 20 live Friday-night fixtures on his channel, using his signature watch-along format. In addition:

• BBC Sport will stream the same Friday matches via their website and iPlayer

• The Overlap (Gary Neville’s YouTube channel) will also carry these fixtures

• Sky Sports retains the high-profile Saturday evening match slot

• Amazon Prime Video offers Sunday games on a pay-per-view basis (£2.49 per match)

• Bundesliga’s own YouTube channel will also stream Friday-night games, including those in Bundesliga 2

This is a very unique strategy. One that I have certainly not seen before.

It makes Bundesliga more accessible in the UK than it ever has been before. Sky Sports is the biggest platform in the country for sport but there are still many millions that do not pay for it. Those people can now get access to Bundesliga on select Friday nights via YouTube for free.

In addition, the watchalong format that Goldbridge is synonymous for is a viewing experience that is rapidly growing in popularity. This is a pretty transformational step from a Big 5 League recognising the shifting tides of football consumption in Europe and targeting one of the biggest creators to take advantage.

In addition, with Goldbridge, Neville, the BBC and their own YouTube channel broadcast games on Friday nights, they are effectively running a live experiment to test which platform and personality style draws the biggest audience. By running the same fixtures across mainstream broadcasters and creator-led channels, the Bundesliga can measure reach, engagement, and demographic pull before deciding how to shape future rights packages.

The rhetoric so far has been how much of a win this has been for Goldbridge to be selected alongside Gary Neville for this opportunity. To me though, this is a stroke of genius from Bundesliga.

La Liga, who still awards their rights to the smaller Premier Sports platform in the UK… could learn a thing or two!

Elsewhere, some other significant news this week which serves as a cautionary tale about the volatility of esports business models.

Guild Esports Team has gone under.

Guild are…. were a London-based esports organisation launched in 2019 with David Beckham as a co-owner.

Many of you may have seen my video breaking down David Beckham’s business empire (linked below). During that video I referred to his investment in Guild as it was a very high-profile deal at the time, especially in the esports world.

In 2020, Guild became the first esports team to float on the London Stock Exchange, raising £20 million and signing sponsorships with global brands such as Sky, Subway and Coca-Cola. Despite their high-profile image, Guild, like many other esports teams struggled to generate sustainable revenues and last week announced that they were shutting down after racking up massive financial losses.

What’s crazy is, in 2024 they were part of a distressed acquisition as another org DCB Sports LLC acquired them and delisted them from the stock exchange. Public shareholders were effectively wiped out when this happened. Beckham (and similar stakeholders) likely realised near-total losses on their investments.

Unpaid parties like players and creditors now fall under insolvency proceedings. There's a high chance player prize money, player salaries, and content creator invoices will go unmet or partially paid.

Also, the ripple effects for the wider esports world is stark.

Despite having millions of fans around the world esports teams are unlike traditional sports clubs. They lack consistent revenue from ticketing, media rights, and matchday income, relying instead on sponsorships and inconsistent short-term brand deals.

Prize money from tournaments is very unpredictable and rarely covers operating costs, while merchandise sales are a small contributor compared to established sports.

This means teams are often locked into a cycle of raising external investment just to stay afloat and when that well runs dry, you get a very unfortunate situation like Guild.

As you know, I speak about sustainability alot. It’s not a very attractive topic but governance and regulations must be put in place to prevent things like this from happening.

A lot of lessons to be learnt here.

If you want to see my video on David Beckham, click here:

Finally, shout out to Tommy Fleetwood for breaking his PGA Tour duck last night.

Tommy won his first PGA Tour event at his 163rd attempt yesterday, picking up $10m in prize money 😮‍💨

Not a bad tournament to choose Tommy boy!

See you next week.