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Mainstream football wants fan media – but only on its own terms

Voices of supporters are becoming increasingly prevalent in the mainstream media, but they are not always being used effectively, explains Peter Bolster .

Fan media has become valuable enough for broadcasters to invest in, acquire and build programming around.

Yet mainstream football still has a habit of confusing reach with expertise, turning supporters into characters and then wondering why so many people struggle to take the fan voice seriously.

There was a time when the half-and-half scarf was just a scarf. Somewhere along the way it became football shorthand for something much bigger: the touristification of the game, the suspicion that somebody had turned up for the occasion without really understanding what it meant to the people around them.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Sunday, January 5, 2020: A Liverpool and Everton half-and-half scarf on sale before the FA Cup 3rd Round match between Liverpool FC and Everton FC, the 235th Merseyside Derby, at Anfield. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

The judgement is not always fair, but football culture has never required complete fairness before deciding what something represents.

Increasingly, ‘content creator’ is beginning to carry the same baggage.

For sections of match-going support, the phrase now conjures up somebody screaming into a phone after a defeat, manufacturing outrage, producing an enormous thumbnail and discovering that catastrophe is actually rather useful when your livelihood depends upon people clicking on your reaction to it.

That is deeply unfair to huge parts of fan media, but it has not happened by accident.

Routinely placed beneath the same heading are serious supporter-led organisations, people producing thoughtful analysis, and those deliberately taking controversial stances for attention.

The rise of fan media

CHICAGO, USA - Thursday, July 23, 2026: Liverpool's new head coach Andoni Iraola pictured with the Anfield Wrap's Neil Atkinson (C) and Craig Hannan (R) at the team hotel in Chicago on day four of the club's pre-season tour of America. The team play friendly games in Nashville, New York and Chicago as they prepare for the start of the new 2026/27 Premier League season. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

Fan media grew because traditional coverage had a gap. Fanzines did it before social media existed, then websites, podcasts, YouTube channels and eventually substantial media businesses followed.

The Anfield Wrap is the obvious Liverpool example: its success was built around Liverpool being discussed by people immersed in the club and city, people who watched every game, travelled and understood the conversations around the club.

It was never simply an imitation of Sky Sports with a smaller budget. Its value came from offering something national coverage could not always provide: depth on one football club.

Mainstream media now effectively accepts that this knowledge matters. Co-founded by Gary Neville and comedian Michael McIntyre, Fanalysis describes itself as being about ‘fan empowerment’, built around supporters who ‘know best’.

Its partnerships with Sky Sports and the Athletic are based on the premise that club-specific opinion is worth hearing.

The BBC has gone in the same direction in two ways: it uses dedicated fan writers for Premier League clubs, selected from established podcasts and blogs, and it created Last Pundit Standing to find a new football expert from the creator space.

Neville’s The Overlap has gone further commercially, buying Mark Goldbridge’s The United Stand and That’s Football in a seven-figure deal, while Goldbridge now sits alongside Wayne Rooney on Stick to United.

A supporter-led YouTube personality discussing Man United every week with the club’s record goalscorer, on a programme backed by Disney, tells you how far this world has travelled.

File photo dated 23-09-2024 of Gary Neville whose The Overlap network has bought Mark Goldbridge's YouTube channels. Issue date: Tuesday April 14, 2026.

The argument that the fan voice has value has therefore already been won, but the industry still appears confused about what that value actually is.

Social media has created a strange equation whereby visibility is easily mistaken for authority.

A ridiculous TikTok can reach half a million people while a thoughtful explanation of why Liverpool’s midfield has lost its structure disappears with a few thousand views.

That becomes a problem when mainstream broadcasters use reach as a shortcut for expertise. Sky, the BBC and ITV do not need somebody to arrive carrying 300,000 followers – they already have reach.

If they genuinely want the best club specialist, they should be capable of finding someone knowledgeable, articulate and credible.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Wednesday, February 26, 2025: A Liverpool supporter takes a photo of the Spion Kop outside the stadium before the FA Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Newcastle United FC at Anfield. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

That does not mean the match-going supporter is automatically right, either. You do not have to have been born within sight of Anfield does not necessarily make you insightful.

There are Liverpool supporters thousands of miles away who understand the club brilliantly, just as there are people who attend every week and offer very little beyond the fact they were there.

The test should be knowledge, substance and the ability to communicate it, not postcode, celebrity or follower count.

The Fanalysis plan

BOURNEMOUTH, ENGLAND - Sunday, September 20, 2026: Former Liverpool player Jamie Carragher, working for Sky Sports, before FA Premier League match between AFC Bournemouth and Liverpool FC at Dean Court. Liverpool won 1-0. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

I should declare my own position because I am part of this story. I was selected as one of Fanalysis’ original Starting XI and have appeared on Sky Sports representing Liverpool.

I remain involved with it and still believe strongly in the original premise, which is exactly why what has happened since feels so disappointing.

When Sky launched Fan Club, it was a two-hour programme between 10am and midday from Monday to Friday, with Fanalysts regularly appearing, while the Saturday programme also ran for two hours.

Sky described it as a ‘fan-first interactive discussion show’ built around supporter views and pundit opinion. Yet the weekday Fanalysis presence has now disappeared and, as things currently stand, the regular live involvement has been reduced to a single hour on a Saturday evening.

Whatever the internal reasoning behind that decision, it is difficult to look at such a dramatic reduction and argue that the original format has worked in the way anybody hoped it would.

For me, that is not a damning indictment of fan expertise; it is a damning indictment of how that expertise has been used.

If putting genuine club specialists into those conversations had been developed properly, presented credibly and turned into something audiences felt they needed to watch, you would expect the idea to be growing, not shrinking.

Instead, the television presence has been cut while Fanalysis has become increasingly associated with the app: predictions, line-ups, player ratings, manager ratings and aggregated supporter opinion that can then be turned into broadcast graphics.

There is nothing wrong with any of that per se, but it feels a long way from the most exciting part of the original idea.

PITTSBURGH - Friday, July 26, 2024: Former Liverpool player Sami Hyypiä speaks to Sky Sports at the Kimpton Hotel Monaco ahead of a pre-season friendly match between Liverpool FC and Real Betis Balompié. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

The value was never simply knowing that 63 per cent of Liverpool supporters rated somebody seven out of 10; it was having somebody who had watched every minute explain why.

The Observer reporting that Fanalysts are not paid for their appearances only makes the situation more uncomfortable: supporter expertise is valuable enough to build partnerships, programmes and products around, but the individual expert can still end up being the cheapest part of the whole operation.

There is another part of the process viewers do not see. I know from experience what happens behind the scenes, because I have had a producer speaking directly into my ear, telling me to jump in, interrupt the former player, challenge the rival supporter or get involved because the programme wants debate.

There is nothing sinister about television being produced; it has to be.

LEICESTER, ENGLAND - Sunday, April 20, 2025: Liverpool supporters celebrate after the FA Premier League match between Leicester City FC and Liverpool FC at the King Power Stadium. Liverpool won 1-0. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

The contradiction is that a supporter can be invited because of their knowledge and then encouraged to behave in exactly the way most likely to make them look least knowledgeable.

The interruption produces people speaking over each other, the conversation becomes heated and what might have been a useful exchange between different forms of expertise starts to resemble theatre.

The established pundit remains the authority while the supporter becomes the partisan character around them.

The same hierarchy can be visible on The Overlap, where supporters in fan-debate formats have at times literally sat together on a separate bench while the established football personalities occupy the main set. It is only staging, but the symbolism is hard to miss: the fans are in the room, just not quite at the main table.

The benefit of in-depth knowledge

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Sunday, January 19, 2020: Former Liverpool player Jamie Carragher (R) and former Manchester United player Gary Neville (L) working for Sky Sports before the FA Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Manchester United FC at Anfield. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville demonstrated what happens when television analysis goes deeper.

Their work helped transform Monday Night Football because they interrogated systems, movements and tactical decisions instead of relying on generic observations about desire or somebody ‘wanting it more’.

The lesson should have been that depth is interesting, not simply that former players are authoritative.

A recent discussion on The Game, The Times‘ football podcast, about Dominik Szoboszlai illustrates the point.

The question was whether his versatility makes him the perfect modern midfielder. From a distance, it is understandable: he is an extraordinary athlete, presses aggressively, carries the ball, shoots brilliantly and can play in several positions.

Is Dominik Szoboszlai the perfect modern midfielder?

?On the latest episode of The Game podcast, @_TomClarke, @GregorRoberts0n, @JNorthcroft and Martin Samuel discuss the Liverpool star's importance to the team

?Listen in full: https://t.co/q8WNwIel4w pic.twitter.com/nfggoAYMRR

— Times Sport (@TimesSport) September 18, 2026

But versatility and completeness are not the same thing. A complete midfielder also needs positional discipline, the awareness to protect space, consistency in the tackle, control in possession and the passing quality to dictate a game. Szoboszlai has limitations in those areas.

None of that means the journalists discussing him do not understand football. It means a Liverpool specialist can add another layer that a national journalist, quite reasonably, may not possess.

Instead, mainstream football has learned how to commercialise the fan voice faster than it has learned how to respect fan expertise. It wants supporter audiences, supporter data, supporter passion and supporter conflict, but it still appears uncomfortable surrendering authority.

If it selects fan representatives because they already bring an audience, encourages them towards confrontation and then presents the resulting performance as what fan media looks like, it helps manufacture the very caricature that serious supporter-led coverage then has to fight against.

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The loud voice gets selected because it is loud, television encourages it to become louder, supporters watch and decide fan media is a circus, and traditional punditry quietly retains the position of grown-up authority.

The question has moved on from whether the fan deserves a seat at football’s media table. If broadcasters genuinely believe in supporter expertise, they have to stop treating that seat as though it still belongs in the corner.

What supporters need, if mainstream broadcasters genuinely want them inside their coverage, is something much more significant than another seat on the edge of the set. They need their expertise to be treated as expertise.

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