Serie A get ahead of the curve with new Reddit partnership

In the last week, Serie A became the first professional football league in the world to have an official Reddit account.

A statement published by the league said the following:

"Reddit, known for its vibrant and passionate communities, provides Serie A with a unique opportunity to engage with fans in an authentic and meaningful way. Through its official Reddit account, Serie A will host AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions with players, coaches, and league officials, share exclusive matchday content, and foster discussions around the league’s most exciting moments.

"Fans will also have the chance to participate in polls, contests, and other interactive initiatives, making them an integral part of the Serie A experience. This partnership underscores Serie A’s dedication to innovation and its mission to connect with fans across the globe."

And it's about time. Football as a sport has been incredibly slow to spot the potential of Reddit, despite it regularly among the top 10 most visited websites in the world each month. In terms of social media sites, only YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and X are ahead of it (as is WhatsApp, but that depends on what you class as a social network).

What is Reddit, anyway?

The closest comparison to Reddit is a website forum. Reddit is a collection of a series of smaller forums - known as SubReddits, or Subs - that provide places for people to talk about their interests. They can be on a variety of topics, with popular ones devoted to individual TV shows, computer games, or sports teams.

Each Sub is looked after by a team of volunteer moderators. And anyone can create their own Sub - while there's no exact number available online, most people estimate there to be more than 3million, with around 135,000 of these classed as active.

The Serie A SubReddit was created in August 2010 and currently has more than 500,000 subscribers. This puts it in the top 1% of Subs on the platform.

By contrast, 5m people subscribe to r/PremierLeague, r/Bundesliga has 1.3m members, and r/LaLiga has more than 680k members. Each of these should be looked at as fertile ground for leagues, as audiences are often incredibly diverse and spread out around the world.

The u/SerieA account has announced its arrival on the Serie A SubReddit. So far they’ve published a few comments and posted one additional post which asked for predictions for the coming gameweek. Since then they’ve been quiet, which feels like a misstep after building a bit of hype. Hopefully they find their feet and start engaging with other users over time.

What is sport's history with Reddit?

Patchy at best.

Only a handful of teams in England (and, from what I can tell, Europe) have looked at it as a viable channel for promotion.

England Rugby are quite active, especially around major tournaments. They often post in the r/RugbyUnion SubReddit, sharing highlights and team news. They also host AMA events (Ask Me Anything), where fans can submit their questions for players to respond to during a given timeframe. Most recently the team's nutritionist answered questions ahead of the last game in the Six Nations.

Around six years ago Arsenal went through a phase of engaging with fans on Reddit, taking part in AMAs on the r/Gunners Sub. Players such as Henrik Mkhiraryan, Petr Cech, and Rob Holding answered questions from fans. After a short spell this stopped, and they haven't been spotted since.

There‘a been a bit more success in America, where the NBA has had an official account since August 2007. While they regularly host AMAs, they also share highlights in the NBA SubReddit and on those of teams in the league where appropriate.

What opportunities are there for sports teams on Reddit?

Reddit has been pushing hard over the past 12 months to attract more sports-related content, possibly inspired by the issues faced by X. Clearly they've identified a gap in the market.

SubReddits are full of people passionate about their interest, often from all over the world. It's a primed, pre-selected audience that you can leverage for your marketing.

If you're going to do it, you should start by creating an account with your team's name and approaching the moderators of your chosen SubReddit. These are listed on the right hand side of the screen when you find the right Sub. You'll likely need some way of proving your account is real, you can't blame the moderators for being too careful.

While AMAs are the go-to for content on Reddit, there are other ways you can add value to your team's Sub:

• Sharing exclusive content, such as behind-the-scenes videos.
• Replying to comments or questions.
• Running quizzes or posing trivia questions.

The important thing to remember it's a very democratic place that doesn't take too kindly to sales-based messaging. It's why businesses have always historically struggled on the platform. But by getting involved in the community over time you could attract more fans from across the globe.

And, with the recent introduction of Reddit Pro, you can even access your views and upvote numbers to report on the visibility you're getting.

Wycombe Wanderers' fan collab

I'm a sucker for content like this, especially when it's produced by fans. Wycombe recently published a collab post on Instagram with a family-focused account.

You get to experience the match day experience through their perspective, which does more than any official videos ever could.

It's the classic 'show don't tell' in action. And a collab post is a good idea as it'll go out to both audiences at the same time, pushing your reach even further.

Club Brugge + Roblox

Speaking of new, niche communities, Club Brugge launched on Roblox towards the end of 2024.

By the end of January the club's Goal Clash game had been played more than 1 million times. And all through organic growth. After that first month, more than 60% of users had been under the age of 18. It's part of a wider push from the club to attract more young fans to games. This has included initiatives such as the Young Blues Reporter, where they looked to identify an "influencer of the future".

Social media updates

A few updates it's worth knowing about:

• Instagram reposts (for those who have access to them, they're rolling out very slowly) may now appear in your followers' feeds. Previously you could only share someone else's content to stories.
• Speaking of Instagram, if you were using notes on posts and Reels you won't be able to anymore because they haven't been popular enough.
• YouTube have clarified how views on Shorts are counted - essentially, anytime your Short is on screen it counts as a view.
• Finally, Instagram's bespoke video editor is launching in the UK at the end of April. You can pre-order it on iOS now.