Cruise over to the German Football Association (DFB) digital TV space and you'll see original, engaging video content being delivered to German football fans online. The video space includes highlights, interviews, recaps, trailers for upcoming matches, as well as weekly live streaming of select matches from the Frauen-Bundesliga (German women's league), such as next week's clash between VFL Wolfsburg and FFC Turbine Potsdam.
The video library for the frauen (women's) game currently totals 805 clips including: 363 of the national team; 157 of the national league the Frauen Bundesliga; 118 of the Women's World Cup 2011; 66 of the U-20 WWC 2010; 66 of youth squads; and 34 of the Pokal (Cup) play. Great depth, great access.
Although videos dedicated to the men's amount to 1,536, it's hard to be disappointed with the quantity and variety of videos the DFB have focused on the women's game. It's also interesting the amount of content the national association features pertaining to the league. Almost a quarter.
Something I love is that the videos can be sorted by what type of feature you want to see (interview, highlights etc), which is key when you have a diverse lineup of content. It may seem simple but it let's fans get straight to what they want to watch and they can share each video grouping (there is no sharing function, fans have to copy and paste the url).
There are also links to podcasts (clicking on the link here will take you to iTunes) and RSS feeds.
The sponsor integration is subtle and fan-friendly - you aren't forced to sit through 15 second video ads before getting to the action you really want to see. Yet sponsors, most notably Mercedes Benz, still receive added visibility.
The Fan Shop, complete with something for every fan - men's, women's and kids - is embedded within the DFB-TV site so you don't need to leave the videos while you shop, you can literally watch and shop till you drop.
As a side note, I was surprised that I didn't see social media integrated within their DFB-TV pages. With a bit more digging I found that DFB is using their Fan Club section of their website (partly open, partly member only) as the platform to embed their social media (DFB Frauen has a strong following on Facebook and is growing on Twitter). Seems to me if they brought this all together it could be a more powerful platform to connect with the fan. They have a wealth of content already, that could be even stronger if integrated. Combine the two sections and rename it Digital Network - or whatever the equivalent would be in German language. It looks like they may already be doing this on the DFB app but I have yet to check that out so I don't know how much the frauen bundesliga and frauen national teams are featured.
In summary, DFB is doing a great job of delivering video content to women's football fans who can't easily find what they need on mainstream media - we can all learn from them!
Stay tuned for future posts as we continue the journey exploring what other leading associations are doing with video. We will look at all four associations that were semi-finalists at the 2012 Olympics (US Soccer, Japanese Football Federation, Canadian Soccer Association and the Fédération Française de Football).
Click here for more on market-leading video practices - by the Australian Westfield W-League.
Source: DFB-TV.
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