The era of football broadcasting is seeing drastic changes. Sports TV channels are now always looking to come up with new things that can keep the audience’s attention intact.
They, of course, have to maintain a nice balance to fulfil the desire of people in every group age.
When it comes to pandering to the teenage, young adult football supporting crowd, the broadcasters love to occasionally link up with influencers and social media stars.
They realize that by working alongside certain YouTubers and social media influencers, their channel or streams could get more attraction from the younger crowd.
That is why Sky Sports recently decided to partner up with IShowSpeed ahead of Manchester United’s game against Fulham in the Premier League on Sunday.
Speed has over 13 million subscribers on YouTube and has his World Cup anthem hit over 12 million views in just a few days, with FIFA even hinting at using it as an official song.
His YouTube streams attract thousands and thousands of fans, with the YouTube having a prominent following.
Knowing this and Speed’s hilarious nature, Sky Sports decided to give the 17-year-old social media star some air-time ahead of the United game.
The first bit was their pundits just telling him that Cristiano Ronaldo was not in the squad for the game, which absolutely broke Speed – who has gained the reputation for being Ronaldo’s ‘biggest fan’.
Sky even paired Speed up with their famous presenter Geoff Shreeves for a little segment before the game.
The 17-year-old YouTuber was given the team sheet for the game, where he noticed that Ronaldo was not in it and had a breakdown of sorts. Speed said: “Why isn’t Ronaldo playing? Where is he man?”
He even got Shreeves to make his day by adding a fictional part to the game by announcing that Ronaldo had arrived late and was able to make the game.
Speed has been in England for the last week and even attended United’s Carabao Cup game against Aston Villa on Thursday, during which he also failed to meet Ronaldo due to him being out of the squad.
Speed’s collaboration with Sky Sports helped them rack up a lot of views across their social media accounts.
However, a day after working with the influencer, Sky Sports have now disassociated itself from the social media star and vowed never to collaborate with him according to The Athletic.
That is after they unearthed misogynistic comments made by Speed during one of his Valorant streams in the past, which is something they do not want to associate with at all.
Though, their decision to distance themselves from Speed has not gone down well on Twitter
