Instagram launches IGTV – how will sport react to the change?

Instagram have launched a new vertical ‘TV channel’, IGTV, in what has been seen as an attempt to gazump YouTube as a place for a younger of people to consume long-form video.

Increasingly, Facebook is being seen as a place for parents, whilst Snapchat has somewhat stagnated of late, perhaps thanks to Instagram’s Stories function. Now, Instagram has become the fastest growing social network, and is now behind only Facebook in terms of numbers for the biggest athletes, clubs and celebrities.

When Stories was launched two years ago people at the time commented that this was an attempt to steal some of Snap’s thunder. So it proved. And maybe that should be a warning to YouTube – though Instagram would be doing very well indeed to overtake one of the internet’s best-loved platforms.

And yet, consumer habits are almost impossible to predict – we’d all be billionaires if it were easy – and it is even more difficult when we’re talking about a company like Instagram changing its offering: for a platform that allowed only 60 seconds of video to be uploaded at any one time, pivoting to potentially hour-long vertical videos is quite the departure.

Love @rubey_lcheek’s attitude! ????

A post shared by England (@england) on

This could have quite an impact on sport. Already Instagram is becoming more and more important for sports teams and players, with engagement growing rapidly. The more social media savvy of the clubs and leagues will no doubt be casting their eyes over this news to see if they can produce any content that fits. Recently, the likes of Manchester City and England have experimented with talk-show style content strands – could they be the sort of video productions that we can expect to see on the new platform?

Or can we expect the biggest names to wait and see what works before dipping their toes into the water?

Naturally, it will take time to bed in when the change finally does come and we shouldn’t expect anything major just yet. But it will be very interesting indeed to see how sport’s biggest clubs, leagues and publishers react to the change – and if there’ll be a trend towards people watching long-form vertical video content on Instagram.

About author

Chris McMullan
Chris McMullan 831 posts

Chris is a sports journalist and editor of Digital Sport - follow him on Twitter @CJMcMullan_

You might also like

Interview: Nielsen Sports’ Spencer Nolan Discusses Covid-19’s Impact on Sport Media Rights and the Commercial Sport Landscape

Digital Sport’s Rupert Pratt and Thomas Smith recently sat down with Nielsen Sports Managing Director for the UK & Ireland, Spencer Nolan, to discuss Covid-19’s impact on sport media rights

Snack Media acquire Facebook’s largest global sports publisher, GIVEMESPORT

Snack Media today announced that its acquisition of GIVEMESPORT will create one of the largest sports publishers in the UK, further strengthening its offering to advertisers, rights holders and independent media owners.

The seven essentials for achieving successful sports branding

By Daniela McVicker When it comes to sports, great branding is a must. Your brand influences how people see your company or team. It helps you to forge connections with

0 Comments

No Comments Yet!

You can be first to comment this post!

Leave a Reply