A number of weeks (if not months) planning have led to an interesting innovation from promotion chasing Queens Park Rangers.  Today they announced via a press release that they will, starting with this weekend’s game with Charlton, be live streaming select home league matches via their YouTube channel to fans in Malaysia.

It’s an obvious country to make a big push into with the ownership of the club by entrepreneur Tony Fernandes.  With many of his business interests in the country and the passion for English football obvious there then it makes for an interesting experiment.

One of the issues that appears to have been overcome is around the broadcasting rights that operate there.  To do this there have talks with Astro Sports, the Football League’s broadcast partner in Malaysia.  Thus not every home game with been live streamed, only select ones that don’t conflict with the current deal.  The R’s Chairman spoke to the clubs website;

“We’re really pleased that we’ve finally found a solution for our Malaysian fans to be able to watch more of our home Football League fixtures.  The Malaysian people have really embraced everything about QPR since myself and my fellow shareholders became involved and whilst we’d always encourage as many of them as possible to attend the matches, this is a fantastic alternative for those who are unable to travel to Loftus Road.”

To protect those TV rights, the broadcasts will be geo-blocked to prevent anyone outside of the country being able to watch games.  Going forward the club will hope to build up a significant fan base now and compete directly with the likes of Manchester United, City, Chelsea and the rest.  This does give them an advantage as others are reliant on the host broadcaster while QPR will be shown almost every home game in different places.

In talking to the club this is something they see as a long-term vision with Malaysia being the first (and most obvious) country to exploit but they’re not ruling out others in the future if agreements can be made.  Currently they don’t monetise the content due to rights restrictions, so they don’t see this as a direct revenue stream but a brand building exercise.

If all goes well on the pitch and promotion back to the Premier League at the first time of asking is achieved then this audience will no doubt grow.  Will they be able to continue with this if they do gain promotion we’ll have to wait and see but would be unlikely with the stringent rights deals the top league’s governing body has in place.

It’s another great initiative by the club that, despite not having the resources many do, are taking advantage of their position to expand their brand beyond the local fan base.  In the long term it could prove to be decisive when it comes to their marketing and commercial efforts.