Football Victoria's new NPL Victoria broadcast partnership started with a bang at the weekend with strong at-venue crowds supporting their clubs and online audiences watching.
Healthy attendances around NPL Victoria venues were bolstered by new eyes who gave Victoria's premier men's and women's football competitions a good look for the first time.
The broadcast arrangement announced last week will see every NPL Victoria and U20s match broadcast, along with two matches a week in NPL 2 and also every match in NPL Victoria Women's.
Football fans can access the streams through the high-interaction medium Facebook live video, while simulcast on YouTube gives the viewer flexibility to link with their smart TV or bigger screens.
The NPL Victoria YouTube Channel attracted 1000 new subscribers and 44,154 total viewers (10,503 unique) for the weekend's action across the 21 matches shown. Friday night's 4-3 thriller between Melbourne Knights and Altona Magic attracted more than 2600 unique viewers as the most watched game of the weekend on YouTube.
On Facebook, an average of 1600 unique viewers* per game watched the nine senior men's matches shown, with South Melbourne's Friday night contest against Dandenong City peaking with 4451 followed by Monday night's feature match between Kingston City and Dandenong Thunder at 2875. The Facebook average for NPLW across the five senior matches was 382, with a peak of 662 for Bulleen Lions' Monday night match against Heidelberg United.
*Unique users who watched for a minimum of 30 seconds.
Attending the return of Hakeem al-Araibi at the Pascoe Vale vs Bentleigh Greens match on Friday night, Football Victoria CEO Peter Filopoulos expressed his delight with the new coverage.
"This really is a game-changer for football and our fans in Victoria," Mr Filopoulos said.
"To broadcast more than 570 live matches is simply unprecedented and will have a transformative effect on the sporting and commercial profile of the NPL competitions and our clubs in particular”.
"I am proud that Victoria continues to lead the way in our efforts to promote and grow football broadly and we will continue to evolve this strategy to harness the growing interest in the NPL competitions and provide media platforms for more people to be able to consume the product".
Football Victoria will be holding a workshop with its NPL Victoria and NPLW Victoria clubs in the near future to ensure all clubs can maximise the commercial and marketing opportunities the new broadcasting arrangements provide.