AFTV! Some love it, some hate it, either way as an Arsenal fan or Premier League fan in general its presence has been felt by most. There's been a lot of press recently around AFTV and some of the negativity surrounding it. In this post, we'll take an analytical approach to understand how AFTV performs relative to how Arsenal performs, and understand the appeal relative to some of the channel's top personas.
Does AFTV thrive off negativity? There are definitely some really interesting insights to unpack here.
NOTE: I'll start this off with a brief background on AFTV. Keep scrolling if you're already familiar with it and want to skip to the juicy bits.
*Disclaimer: All of this is publicly available data aggregated and analyzed using Python programming and the YouTube API, visualized in Tableau.
What is AFTV?
'We're gonna do this!' - Robbie
AFTV is an organization that aims to give a voice to the everyday fan, started by this man here, Robbie Lyle. Amongst many other ventures, they are a group of dedicated Arsenal fans that attend virtually every game, giving fans a platform to voice their opinions. These oftentimes come in the form of impassioned reactions that they post to their YouTube channel, coined 'Fancams'
Below you'll find Robbie interviewing 'Troopz', one of the main personalities who frequents the channel after Arsenal matches:
For the record, I am a massive Arsenal fan, and have tremendous respect for Robbie. He built this organization from the ground up with borrowed equipment and virtually no money-- going on to revolutionize how consumers digest post-match reactions and content.
As disruptors of any industry inevitably come to find, the establishment will always take measures to quell their success. In the case of AFTV, there have been numerous high profile incidents (more recently in the form of Simon Jordan and talkSPORT) in which established media outlets in the UK have sought to discredit the channel and its main personalities in a variety of ways, oftentimes for being toxic and too negative.
Tremendous Growth: How did it happen?
As mentioned AFTV has seen tremendous growth since their inception in 2012. Their viewership has reached incredible heights peaking in 2019 with over 200 million views and they currently have over a million subscribers. 64% of their views come from Fancams, where fans give their immediate reactions after Arsenal games.
Looking at a timeline of their viewership, a number of key events lead to their rapid success:
Looking at the above, once can see that some of the highest performing videos early on, and continually through time, came as a result of 'rants' or angry reactions to Arsenal performances. Another key moment in their growth came as a result of a dialogue with Gary Neville over their conduct and the legitimacy of an everyday fan's opinion over those of professional pundits and other personnel involved with the mainstream media.
While AFTV interviews everyone and anyone after games, their highest performing videos actually come from only a handful of personalities who frequent the channel and have amassed massive respective followings of their own.
As you can see above, the growth of the channel has largely correlated with the emergence of two personalities in particular-- Troopz, and DT. Equally passionate fans, both have larger than life personalities and are known for the firey post match reactions to Arsenal games. In fact, they've each become stars in their own right and have created their own channels to capitalize on the massive following they've garnered as a result of AFTV.
Their viewership in terms of fancams far eclipse some of the other personalities on the channel and can be largely attributed to the massive growth AFTV has amassed, particularly in the last three years.
Results: Does success on the field correlate for AFTV?
The above shows the average views per fancam with relation to Arsenal's results:
Red = Loss
Green = Win
Orange = Draw
On average, fancams that are posted after an Arsenal loss gain significantly more views than those after a draw or a win. In 2019, fancams that came after Arsenal losses had ~169 thousand views on average compared to just ~82 thousand views after a win.
Let's dig in to some actual fixtures (2018-2019) and pull out some key moments:
Looking at viewership on fancams by result over the last season show some significant figures. Upsets and poor results perform extremely well in relation to wins. Some of the highlights came after Europa League defeats to Frankfurt, BATE Borisov and Atletico Madrid.
Another key moment came after the 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace during the tail end of Unai Emery's reign. Granit Xhaka clashed with the supporters and Troopz finally turned on the manager in an impassioned rant that went viral.
Let's take a look at the top 100 viewed fancams by results:
Interestingly, only 5 of the top 100 fancams on AFTV come after an Arsenal win. These came as a result of Premier League wins over rivals Tottenham and Chelsea, and the Europa League win over AC Milan. The most viewed video came after a loss to Liverpool during the tail end of the Arsene Wenger era, during which DT gave a very impassioned rant that had over 3 million views.
In fact, this video is also the most liked fancam on the channel, with over 50 thousand likes.
Looking at likes, some of the most liked videos came as a result of rants aimed at Arsene Wenger, and Unai Emery at the end of their respective reigns. One actually came in 2018, after the 4-2 win over Tottenham in which Troopz famously said:
Funnily enough, the most disliked videos came in the form of fans showing support for Arsene Wenger, most often from Ty, a fan who stood by the manager through dwindling support and poor results from the team. In fact, the most disliked fancam came in 2017, when Ty put a 2-1 defeat to Watford down to the fact that it had rained.
Negativity: A reflection of the club?
Ultimately, yes, when the club doesn't perform well, AFTV does. While correlation does not imply causation, impassioned rants after controversial results do bring viewership to the channel. It is important to note that Arsenal as a club have suffered in recent years as a result of dwindling performances and a failure to reach the dizzying heights of years past that many fans can now only dream of.
This begs the question: Who watches AFTV, and why? Whether we win lose or draw, I appreciate their mission of giving the every day fan a voice. I find many of the fans to be extremely knowledgable of the club and the game and have massive respect for their devotion to the club. Personalities like Graham are fantastic and give very insightful analyses on performances while I find Troopz and DT to be more entertaining.
AFTV is in the entertainment business, not unlike any other media platform. I find it contradictory for mainstream media platforms to belittle or antagonize them for any of their content, as many of them are no better when it comes to spreading negativity and do anything they can for viewership.
Negativity surrounding Arsenal over the past decade has been, frankly, unavoidable. AFTV's success has even spurred fans of other clubs to create their own channels (Manchester United, Liverpool)
The fans have a voice now, and it's a loud one.
Komentarze