The Xtra Mile: Football content creation in the digital age
Manchester City website City Xtra owner Freddie Pye on breaking onto the content creator scene, dealing with online backlash and brushing shoulders with industry giants.
Football coverage is an ever-evolving industry, with the digital shift this century opening doors for brand new mediums and professions.
Just ask Freddie Pye, who founded Manchester City-centric social media company City Xtra in 2019 and has seen exponential growth since.
“I was always kind of in the City social media space, and then there was an opening four or five years ago where there was room for another news aggregator and publisher,” says the creator.
“I had an interest in running a big City page, so it was a no-brainer to give it a go – it was more of a hobby than an assignment, and it grew from there.”
That hobby quickly became a cross-platform brand which now boasts over 850,000 followers on Twitter and Instagram combined, making it the largest independent Man City content hub.
Freddie hasn’t noticed much change in his day-to-day work, reflecting: “As it grows and develops and new opportunities come and you branch out to different things, you realise it’s growing naturally.
“Recently we’ve become in good contact with the guys at Arsenal Fan TV, and they’re people who have been in this game for a long time and have cracked it in a YouTube sense and across social, so it’s like these people are taking notice of us; they’re the moments where it feels a bit surreal.”
The growing interest in digital content has paved the way for creators such as CX and AFTV to build massive platforms for themselves, as well as making opportunities to work with the industry’s most renowned professionals; both companies have done promotional work with players from their respective clubs, as well as entering partnerships with the likes of Sky and BT.
Freddie is proud of the privileged position they’ve formed for themselves: “For brands to consider us the go-to people for Manchester City fans means an awful lot, as it shows we’ve done something right and we’re giving off a good image of the club.”
However, with innovation always comes resistance – certain groups of football fans, often from older generations, haven’t taken kindly to the age of tripods-wielding YouTubers and supporters opting to stay at home and host live watchalongs instead of attending matches.
“I think what we could do more of is connecting with match-going fans, and doing more to aid their efforts to improve atmosphere [at matches] and create fan-run events,” Freddie opines.
“There are some groups that just view us as lads behind computer screens who never go to games, and that’s not really the case – we’d love to go to every game and the people who now have a very big say in what we do all had season tickets, and we made a commitment to improving fan’s experiences online.”
Perhaps the area of content which has proved the most controversial for CX’s detractors is their aggregation of news stories broken by journalists regarding the club, with fans not always pleased to read rumours they deem to be negative.
Freddie admits to having become careful over what he allows to be posted: “The way we’ve approached that over the years has changed, as we started off by relaying everything that was put out there, regardless of reliability or anything – we’re now far more aware of what we put out.
“We share news stories that aren’t necessarily great [for the club], but if they’re reliably informed, we have to put it out there.”
On the flip side of the same coin, the younger generation has wholly embraced and, in many cases, driven football coverage’s digital age.
City Xtra are run by a team of young creators, with some contributors in their teens, leading to an evergreen willingness to explore new opportunities.
Louis Writtle, a City content creator in his own right, has reaped the benefits from his role on the content team, explaining: “Writing for City Xtra has helped my portfolio as I’m studying sports journalism at university, so through producing articles I’ve been able to showcase these to current and future employers.
“CX is also very well recognised, especially in the football journalism community, so having a big name like that on your CV certainly helps.”
Writing to such a platform can allow for further development too, as Freddie explains: “I think we’ve got to a point where people who contribute for us are under the watchful eye of bigger things and bigger names in the industry.
“That means a lot for me personally, to know that there’s potential for everyone within our team to make these jumps; that probably means more than everything else we’ve done.”
With the direction that football coverage is heading in, organisations like City Xtra and people like Freddie Pye are sure to be leading the way.
