Arsenal Launches Official Youtube Presence

Arsenal FC have followed in the footsteps of their Champions League-chasing rivals, joining the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, with the launch of an official YouTube channel.

The channel will give the club’s supporters around the world the opportunity to view new content, including exclusive features such as the Chat, Twitter Takeover, Arsenal Ink released via the platform. 

Supporters can access additional exclusives and content through the Gunners’ other sites and outlets, including Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Soundcloud, WeChat, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo.

As a prelude to the official YouTube launch, Arsenal’s channel was active for just over two weeks last summer and reportedly streamed almost 20 years of footage to supporters all over the world. A video of Arsenal fan Vu Xuan Tien chasing after the team coach in Vietnam went viral, with over 3 million views through the official page.

Arsenal launched the channel with a new video starring a number of players and snippets of things to come. Watch it here at Sport Industry TV.

Previously, Arsenal had been one of the biggest clubs in the country without an official YouTube presence, while Manchester United are also yet to launch a channel. 

Just 24 hours after launching, Arsenal FC have already accumulated 46,000 subscribers to the channel (as of Wednesday morning), gaining on their local rivals Tottenham Hotspur’s 70,000 followers.

However, the Gunners have some way to go to catch the top three: Chelsea (320,000), Manchester City (260,000) and Liverpool (245,000).

Meanwhile, in terms of engagement statistics, Crystal Palace are the stand-out winners, with nearly 7 million views from their 8,600 subscribers – although the presence of the “Crystal Palace Crystals” have had a small part to play in those figures.   

Richard Clarke, managing editor for the Arsenal Media Group said: ‘An official Arsenal channel on YouTube will allow us to reach a new audience and tell the story of the Club in a different way. We hope YouTube will help us show the character of our special club and grow our global fan base.’

Stephen Nuttall, senior director for sport at YouTube added: ‘300 of the top football clubs in the world run official channels on YouTube. The success of the Arsenal channel during the summer demonstrates the Club’s potential to build a great presence on YouTube.’  

The new channel can be found at www.youtube.com/arsenal