Remember fifteen years ago, when you discovered with the eyes of love that your amateur club had invested in a Footeo site brand new, almost making these beloved discussion forums look like a pre-war communication tool. Well, as someone else would say, football has changed. “The days of amateur clubs just having a scrappy Facebook page are over,” explains Léo Jadaud, head of the creative agency specializing in sports business. Jaddlo. They all understood the need to move forward on digital and offerinside, which brings authenticity and creates a feeling of belonging. The Covid-19 lockdowns have accelerated this awareness. »
This is why this 28-year-old content creator from Angers just launched an “educational” web series last month, Pimp my club, in which he follows the small Regional 3 club of Cerizay Football (Les Deux-Sèvres). We see it modernizing its logo and offering it a bold identity through different means, which could end up convincing many small structures, including in rural environments. Because French amateur sport is gradually getting used to modern/atypical modes of communication, going as far as web series on YouTube.
In this niche, the star program has been the #QFD (Only football) of Valentin Liénard, a real football YouTuber with 392,000 subscribers on the famous social media. From his inconclusive test at Villefranche (National 1) to the serious injury of a teammate from his new club Thonon Evian Grand Genève (N2), the 26-year-old right side brings us to life from the inside, with his series of vlog (126 episodes online) his life as a semi-pro footballer. The success is undeniable, with more than 300,000 views on average per video. The effects are therefore spectacular when Valentin Liénard joins a club. AS Saint-Priest (N2, Rhône), for example, only had 8,000 subscribers on Instagram before the arrival in 2019 of the player with a million followers accumulated on the various social networks. In a few months, he played a leading role in the explosion of the club in the Lyon area, now followed by more than 28,000 people on Insta.
His arrival in 2022 at Jura Dolois (N3) then allowed the contribution to the Franche-Comté amateur club of his important personal partner Betclic. To what extent can the visibility/sponsors accompanying Valentin Liénard interfere with sporting criteria at the time of recruitment? Coach of Jura Dolois last season, Hervé Saclier shares his feelings about the man who briefly worked with Kylian Mbappé at the AS Monaco training center: “Let’s say that to choose between him and a player of equivalent level, a club will turn to him because the notoriety he brings is necessarily appreciable.”
After having little use of Valentin Liénard in the second part of the season, Hervé Saclier returns to the consequences, sometimes negative, of such a digital phenomenon in his ranks.
Locker room sequences that could be interpreted as complacency within the group were broadcast on the Internet by Valentin and they could have served as additional motivation for our opponents. These are things that you normally never see come out in amateur sport. »
Jura Dolois even had the surprise of playing certain home matches with unprecedented enthusiasm, namely a peak of 2,000 spectators for a shock last March against neighboring Pontarlier, decisive with a view to promotion to N2. The Val Liénard effect? “Clearly, and I was also made to understand that it would have created a great momentum among the public if I had brought Valentin into play. But we were behind and I had no interest in using a substitution for a defender,” sighs Hervé Saclier. Like Valentin Liénard, Achraf Berriss (32 years old, 35,000 subscribers on YouTube) offers numerous videos recounting his adventures in National 2 with Libourne (Gironde).
“We’re a bit like the district’s PSG”
Some stories in amateur football are even more original, like that of Vincent Maduro, better known by his YouTuber nickname Vinsky (1.46 million subscribers). French pioneer of the amateur football web series, he actually created his club Vinsky FC in Yvelines in 2017. “I told myself that filming the adventures of a brand new club would give a great story”, summarizes the one who registered Vinsky FC with the FFF in 2019, and this in Departmental 6, the lowest possible level in the Paris region. Player for a year and a half, Vincent Maduro is now the manager of “his” club, which has made a series of climbs and is now in D3 with 110 licensees and several teams in the youth categories.
With necessarily excessive enthusiasm, since the episodes of the web series regularly exceed 200,000 views and the matches broadcast live each week on Twitch can see audience peaks of 1,500 spectators. “We initially felt a little hostility from the other clubs, we are still called the YouTubers team,” smiles Vinsky. We’re a bit like the PSG of the district: our opponents know that we attract players from higher levels. They also know that they will be filmed against us, it’s always the match of the year for them. » Prestigious sponsors like Adidas and Unibet are part of the adventure at Vinsky FC, which has more subscribers on YouTube (306,000)… than OL!
More audience for a R3 basketball club than for the Euroleague
Likewise, Saïd Dorbani filmed from 2021 to 2023 his two seasons at the head of the U17 team of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon (Rhône) with your Pieds Carrés account (552,000 subscribers) and videos regularly exceed one million views on YouTube. Nearby, basketball is not left out in Francheville, a modest Regional 3 club. At 28, Samir Safsaf has a bac + 5 in psychology and has been immersed in the YouTube world for six years. At the start of the season, he convinced Francheville Basket to offer him total freedom of content/tone, and different room slots, so that he could launch his web series Carter Project. A reference to the film Coach Carter with Samuel L. Jackson, and a clear plot, filming an entire year from the inside: “The goal is to show how a team can regain hope after a catastrophic season with 4 wins in 22 games.”
This unprecedented bet in French amateur basketball seemed to be ultra-confidential, especially given Samir’s YouTube account with 74 subscribers (Sam Potter). But after four months and 13 episodes, he has 12,000 subscribers on his channel, with videos reaching 118,000 views. “It’s still crazy that our episodes get more audience than the summaries of Asvel and Monaco matches in the Euroleague on the big Skweek platform, and even than certain summaries of NBA matches on beIN SPORTS, right? », smiles Samir Safsaf.
“That would make a beast of an episode for next week”
Chance or coincidence, the results are much better this season, with four successes in the ten matches of the first phase for Francheville Basket. “In any case, it amuses the guys to see that the adventure is so followed by Internet users,” says our YouTube basketball player. But once on the floor, what difference does it make in concrete terms to know that you are constantly being filmed, and to have your “inside” series in mind? Samir Safsaf says: “Sometimes at the end of a tight match, I find myself thinking on the pitch: “If we come back from three points behind to win, that would make a great episode for next week”! “. So goes his double hat at the head of this Carter Project, with a “very high quality” rendering with his partner Raphaël Milanetto (director) and their cameraman Mathis Waccholz. As expected, Francheville Basket is not directly involved in this project. feel good “.
“No amateur club can spend 60,000 euros per year to produce such a series as we do,” recalls Samir. The advantage is that we are far from the problems of professional sport: there is no issue at the regional level on the images that we can show of the different players. » President of Francheville Basket, Philippe Guillou (47 years old) quickly saw the beneficial aspects for emulation within his club of 255 licensees: “We have 70% of young people under the age of 18 among our licensees and we feel good that they are very sensitive to new means of communication. It helps us retain our licensees. Everyone sees this project favorably, whether it is the club, the town hall, or our sponsors. They realize that there are sometimes nearly 500 supporters in our room for a R3 match, it’s crazy, and it’s undoubtedly the series effect.
“People don’t care a bit about the levels”
Philippe Guillou knows that this is a “springboard” experience for Samir Safsaf, who dreams of “shooting a series of this type in the United States or following a player who wants to go pro”. Contacted by the National Basketball League (LNB), Paris Basketball and Asvel in view of the unexpected enthusiasm around its Carter Projecthe concludes: “We are a new generation, we know what works on the web and what encourages people to become addicted to a series”.
His eldest Vinsky (32 years old) sums up this phenomenon which has given rise to numerous successful content in French amateur sport: “Only the story counts. People become attached to the characters in their successes and in their failures, and they don’t care about the levels. You still have to be good at storytelling, because being a YouTuber is still a job.”