AuthorJeffEyesRimmer So our first club feature on this page was on the oldest club in the world – Sheffield FC. So the question for us was how do we follow on from the oldest club in the world? Well how about one of the youngest clubs to be formed and one that goes against the traditions of the established football pyramid? You may have heard of Hashtag United before but if you haven’t this club could be the precursor to future interaction and consumption (I feel dirty saying that) of football content. Football has become another form of entertainment to compete for our attention and money. The web has become a major factor in how we enjoy our content, be it football or otherwise, and so it was only a matter of time before a smart group of people merged football with interactive content – Hashtag Utd was born from this. Hashtag United were the brain child of a Youtuber called Spencer Owen who ran a Youtube channel called Spencer FC. By posting various videos on football including challenges and alike Spencer came up with the plan to create a Sunday league side with his mates and live stream the football matches. The popularity of Spencer FC channel certainly helped build the foundations of Hashtag United and now he has over 1.6 million subscribers to the channel. So what is Hashtag United? The key thing with the team is that it is made up of local guys with the club not being in any football pyramid. Hashtag are not in a traditional league structure and didn’t want to be in a Sunday league due to those leagues taking a long time to run and away trips not being great for filming. Instead a shorter schedule of 'friendlies' are played. The quick pace and turnaround of games lends itself well to the Internet where fast and constant delivery of content is desirable. So who do they play and how does it work? The league structure works by playing so many friendlies over a set number of games for a short season, similar to FIFA Ultimate team if you have played that. At the beginning of the season a target is set to reach promotion and if they fail to meet the requirements they could be relegated. Other challenges are set through the season as well and rewards given to the players if they are met. The first team made its debut in March 2016 with 18 players in the squad. They started out in Division 5 and the aim was to reach Division 1, with a season typically lasting around 10x games. This makes the seasons short and sweet and keeps the youtube viewer base interested. And they are interested; typically Hashtags games are viewed be between 500k to 600k people! That’s a lot of fans! The games are then filmed by a four man crew and streamed to the channel for everyone to view and comment on. The popularity is now such that Hashtag have played at Wembley, played against a Google team, a Manchester City team made up of staff and they even defeated the Football Manager team and earned the right to be included in the new FM17 game. Look out for them in this year’s new game. Oh and they even tried to sign up Adebayo Akinfenwa for a few games (that would have been ace). Suffice to say we will be watching what Hashtag get up to in the future. Hastags popularity likely comes the way the games and league works. They play in an E-Sports style manner which is quickly gaining massive exposure due to its popularity online. Additionally platforms like Twitch which live stream all manner of games and E Sports has gained a huge following. Professional FIFA gamers are now being employed by the big clubs so merging the too seems like a logical step. This may seem all a bit crazy compared to regular football we know and love but the numbers don’t lie, people enjoy this type of football content, so much so that other sides like Palmers FC and Sidemen are doing similar things. While we can’t see that this will take over the big boys there are certainly lessons to be learnt from Hashtag and other sides providing this type of football. Hopefully the grass-roots part of the game can take this up and provide this style of content as it really could be a great earner for the smaller side of the game. You never know you could end up watching all manner of Sunday League football all from the comfort of your own home, it certainly changes the 'one man and his dog watching' dynamic. Image: Hashtag United Twitter page - https://twitter.com/hashtagutd
|
AuthorsJust Some Fans Writing About Football. Archives
June 2018
Categories
All
|